Following a slow and steady ascent to a height of over 180,000 feet above sea level, the fate of NASA’s Low Density Supersonic Decelerator now hangs in the balance. Everything went smoothly, up until the craft detached itself from the carrier balloon and began its descent.
After reaching a speed of roughly Mach 4, the craft deployed a special supersonic parachute, which was damaged during the opening process. This damage prevented the chute from creating as much drag as NASA had hoped for, meaning the LDSD will hit the water at a higher velocity than anticipated, likely causing damage to the craft. Details on why the parachute failed are forthcoming, so stay tuned for updates.
NASA, as you may or may not be aware, is dead set on putting a man on Mars. The agency’s goal is to do so before 2030 — but there’s still a lot of work to be done between then and now. Landing a rover is one thing.
Safely ferrying a human to the red planet, however, is a different thing entirely. As such, NASA needs to do some additional testing before it can launch the mission — and its latest test just so happens to be live streaming on the web at this very moment Earlier today, at about 1:30 PM eastern, the agency launched a high-altitude balloon carrying a craft called the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) — a large, disc-shaped reentry vehicle designed to create atmospheric drag in order to decelerate during entry through a planet’s atmosphere.
The text flight was originally scheduled to take place this past Tuesday, but was postponed multiple times due to inclement weather and unfavorable ocean conditions. Today, however, the skies above NASA’s Hawaii-based launch station were clear, and mission control gave the greenlight for launch.
