NASA Expected to Launch Mars 'Flying Saucer'

NASA Expected to Launch Mars 'Flying Saucer'

NASA plans to launch in the Earth's atmosphere a "flying saucer" in order to test the new technology of landing on Mars on Saturday, according to the space agency’s website.

Earlier the launching of the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD), resembling a futuristic circular disc from movies about aliens, has been repeatedly postponed due to unfavorable weather in the area of ​​the flight pad in Hawaii.

Mars flying saucer

Disc-shaped device equipped with a giant parachute, will be launched from the shore of Kauai Island. The test flight will take place in the Earth's upper atmosphere at four times the speed of sound, which, according to experts, is similar to the conditions on Mars. Eventually, NASA plans to send astronauts in heavier spacecraft to the "red planet".

A safe landing on Mars requires high test parachute that NASA is working on. In the 1970s the space agency used the same parachute design to slow landers and rovers as they streak through the thin Martian atmosphere.

According to a NASA engineer, the goal is to "get to an altitude and velocity which simulates the kind of environment one of our vehicles would encounter when it would fly in the Martian atmosphere," The Telegraph reports. NASA was working on this project for a few years to get this vehicle off the ground.


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