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NASA Successfully Tests 'Flying Saucer' Craft, New Parachute
As reported by the Associated Press, via the Washington Post, an update on the promised (and now at least mostly successful) new disc-shaped craft and parachute technology intended for a NASA mission to Mars, though applicable to other space missions as well: A saucer-shaped NASA vehicle launched by balloon high into Earth’s atmosphere splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, completing a successful test on Saturday of technology that could be used to land on Mars. Since the twin Viking spacecraft landed on the red planet in 1976, NASA has relied on the same parachute design to slow landers and rovers after piercing through the thin Martian atmosphere. The $150 million experimental flight tested a novel vehicle and a giant parachute designed to deliver heavier spacecraft and eventually astronauts. Despite small problems like the giant parachute not deploying fully, NASA deemed the mission a success. ... [T]he parachute unfurled — if only partially — and guided the vehicle to an ocean splashdown about three hours later. At 110 feet in diameter, the parachute is twice as big as the one that carried the 1-ton Curiosity rover through the Martian atmosphere in 2011. Coatta said engineers won't look at the parachute problem as a failure, but as a way to learn more and apply that knowledge during future tests. ... A ship was sent to recover a "black box" designed to separate from the vehicle and float. Outfitted with a GPS beacon, the box contains the crucial flight data that scientists are eager to analyze. "That's really the treasure trove of all the details," Coatta said. "Pressure, temperature, force. High-definition video. All those measurements that are really key to us to understanding exactly what happens throughout this test."
Wait, so did the rest of the craft & chute sink?
Actually, it's an ahref with no URL.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Not enough of them. Needs moar pictures!
The US has been messing with these things for the last 50 years and NASA finally dips a toe? Lame, sorry guys.
Really? best you can do is a link to the Washington fucking post ? this is fucking slashdot, where's the mission pages, pics, videos, spec and software rundown ? ffs editors put some effort in!.
It costed how much? It didn't work right, did not fully deploy and it was considered a success? Not to mention the material sunk? Now I see why SpaceX could replace NASA and this is coming from a Sci geek. They need to stop spending like idiots they ruin funding for all of us.
Actually I completely support this kind of NASA test, but I question why NASA would want their trial balloons in the Wasthington @#$ing Post.
Gently reply
Please stop using the words "flying saucer", it spooks the civilians.
That's a heat shield, no different concept than on any of the old US spacecraft, just designed to aerobrake on Mars.
It fails !
Bolden shouts, "Success !"
NASA is doomed.
We're progressing to the stage where we'll be landing flying saucers on foreign planets. Disclaimer: I'm a complete sceptic.
NASA's been developing a hypersonic parachute for Mars, made out of new materials for over a decade now. Today's test is for a >100 foot version of that parachute. The mach 4, >100 foot parachute, in air densities comparable to Mars, didn't burn up, and it did a decent job at slowing down. So, the $150 million test showed that mach 4, >100 foot parachutes, in air densities comparable to Mars could work.
Now, a mach 11 (about orbital velocity of Mars), >100 foot parachute, in air densities comparable to Mars would be useful for Mars missions, but that test would cost even more, so a cheaper test for mach 4 was done instead.
Splashing in Mars.
This is a flying saucer as much as any cow is a flying cow. Falling is not flying.
"That's not flying! It's falling with style!"
I read the parachute failed and they were confirming whether all ordinance fired or not for the recovery team. Saying the parachute was a success is wrong, but the craft works. I hope they work the bugs out.
No, it took $150,000,000 to design a parachute for literally otherworldly conditions, to determine terrestrial conditions that could be used to test the parachute, to design a mission to reach those terrestrial conditions, to design a craft to reach those conditions (ie, the vehicle, the spin-stabilizing motors, the launch motor, and the controls), and to pay for the staffing and research time needed to get the craft to PMRF, to assemble it, and to monitor weather conditions until they permit a launch, then to recover everything afterward out of the Pacific.
If they decide to do more tests with this kind of platform those future tests will cost less, as the platform, the mission, and the conditions are known. Even if they had to build more platforms it's still cheaper for future attempts, probably on orders-of-magnitude.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
?
NASA has had their hand in lots and lots of aeronautics projects over the years, and really has pushed what they can do for terrestrial and near-earth transportation to the limit. NASA shouldn't be focused on these areas anymore, as the companies-of-old that built their LEO launchers and the companies now building LEO launchers have things well in hand.
NASA is focusing on what they should, which is finding an area in space exploration that is deficient or has run into a limit, and to find a way around that. The parachute systems used to land on Mars date back to the Viking missions of the seventies and do not provide enough drag for future heavier payloads, they're literally at their design limits. If we want to land more than small rovers on Mars then we need a means to slow that payload down. NASA is attempting develop that means.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Machinery Out Of Space Easiest
Your president wants your permission to allow him to give more than 3 times what this experiment cost (500 x 10^6 dollars) to arm a bunch of people , the majority whom are the very enemies you were fighting for more than 10 years. I ask you: Where is your money really being wasted?
Controlled falling is kind of flying. Though I don't think I'd count a parachute unless you did some fancy maneuvers
To flush out this story:
1) This is the first of three tests. The next test is next summer; they designed the long lead time so that they could roll bug fixes uncovered in the first test into the system. The price tag covers all the tests and some additional work besides not just this one test.
2) The black box was dropped just in case they couldn't recover the hardware, it has a lot of data and high resolution imagery. For this test, they were able to recover all of the hardware as well.
3) The first test was really a shake out of the balloon deployment method that took the vehicle up to 120k feet, spun it up for stability, brought it to Mach 4 and despun the vehicle. This hadn't been tried before so the fact that it succeeded was fantastic.
4) The gravy part of this test was the inflation of the SIAD (supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator) and a new type of parachute with a higher drag coefficient than what we normally expect from a Viking heritage DGB (disk gap band). The SIAD inflated without a hitch the parachute looks to have tangled up. They'll have to investigate the hardware and find out what exactly happened.
5) They're doing something high risk and "crazy" to push forward the state of the art. Elements are expected to fail along the way but they're rolling fixes into the next test. Try checking out a compilation of rocket explosions that happened while we were learning how to build them.
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Why the hell does this matter?
With the current state of the art; we can land up to around 2 tons on Mars. With new technology like the SIAD (which can be opened far earlier than a parachute ever could be) we can get to landing ~10 tons on Mars. There is an even larger SIAD that would push this into the +20 ton range (especially if you include the new parachute as well). This is the start of the range where we can start talking about human missions to Mars.
Hope that helps.
I know you're a troll, but that low comment shows you have no business being on Slashdot.
You are no nerd, you are no geek, you are not interested in science and research. Fuck off and find some site that is more to your liking. Like... fluffyrainbowfarts.com or whatever.
But we dropped the patient and they died. Think of it as a "learning experience".
This is a flying saucer as much as any cow is a flying cow. Falling is not flying.
Unless you manage to miss the ground.
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
@itzly - you said that you "didn't know the details for Mars":
The speed of sound at atmospheric interface is around 200m/s so take your favorite realistic entry velocity at Mars and divide it by 200m/s to get the entry Mach number. (Spoiler: It won't be Mach 11)
Reference: http://exrocketman.blogspot.co... (look at figure 7 column 'c' is for the speed of sound)
Let's say we're *really slow* and enter at 5 km/s as you mentioned above. That would mean 5000/200 = Mach 25. A more realistic *direct* entry velocity is in the neighborhood of 6-7 km/s.
im not interested in "we made a big parachute lets go piss 150 grand away to test it"
"I for one welcome our new Earth overlords and their fearsome flying saucers!"
I freakin' hate stories where there are no images of the bloody thing.
Maybe UFOs are really us from the future.