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NASA Releases Footage of "Flying Saucer" Braking Test, Declares Success
According to the AP, in a story carried by the San Jose Mercury News, NASA engineers insisted Friday that a test of a vehicle they hope to one day use on Mars achieved most of its objectives, despite a parachute that virtually disintegrated the moment it deployed. The engineers laid out at a news conference what they've learned in the six weeks since the $150 million high-altitude test of a vehicle that's designed to bring spacecraft -- and eventually astronauts -- safely to Mars. Engineers said they achieved the main objective: getting a flying saucer-shaped craft to 190,000 feet above the Earth at more than four times the speed of sound under test conditions that matched the Martian atmosphere. Ars Technica has (beautiful, high-speed, high-definition) video of the test that shows the parachute tearing itself apart, as well as the many parts that went as planned.
to be the first poster on Mars.
bumper sticker, y'know.
a link to YouTube, which has a video of the test.
flying saucers brake for you!
And evidently in Hawaii as well.
no one's going to Mars. Haha, remember when we thought Venus was a lush tropical paradise, Mars had canals and the Galaxy was the universe?
Hoo boy, such naiveté!!!
Good thing that people don't believe this crap anymore!
The parachute that brought the latest rover to Mars also disintegrated during testing. However NASA proceeded with the design knowing that the atmosphere on Mars is not nearly as dense as it is on Earth. Is the disintegration of the parachute actually considered by NASA to be a failure, or is this article just fishing for clicks with sensationalist titles?
Correct me if I'm missing something, but from the Ars Technica article, it looks like the name is supposed to be "Falling saucer" not "Flying saucer."
Which would make sense as this is supposed to be simulating the lander modules not flying vehicles.
190000 feet = 57912 meters.
Just helping NASA to prevent getting their units mixed up again.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
Gimme a brake -- one that operates at the right meters per seconds squared...
Yes yes it was a great test. And as tests go even a total failure offers a learning exercise.
On the next "exercise" I would suggest that Admin. Bolden and his Equal-Opportunity-Admin. "what ever her name is or was"
be put into the saucer so that they can relay to JPL engineers the effects of smashing into the Pacific Ocean at Mack 4.3.
That would save NASA billions of dollars in FY16.
Ha ha
Even being so high up, in a low density atmosphere, it didn't take much to de-spin the vehicle as they put it. That was pretty cool.
EARTH ONE is a simple program: stay on earth until you die. Unfortunately, no way has been figured out yet how to get you away from earth and back to earth. Therefore you will have to die there. Your possibility of being a reality-tv star is very low compared from mars, as the program is being conducted by lots of people, but apparently it also has some charm, as most of the most famous men of the last 100 years participated in that program.
"Mars had canals and the Galaxy was the universe?"
Nobody on slashdot is that old
Hubble proved that other galaxies were other galaxies in the 1920's
exactly..
it's an *experiment* because you don't know what's going to happen.
Otherwise, it's called a "problem set" or "homework".
Yep... it broke.... Mission Accomplished!
This is one of those extremely RARE moments when a government team has done something great for the taxpayers. They wanted to test Mars entry hardware at a scale too large to fit into any wind tunnel that could simulate Mars and SHOCKINGLY they did NOT propose spending a decade and billions of dollars building a new super-sized "Mars upper-atmosphere simulation facility". They also did NOT propose spending billions on a whole fleet of mars-bound EELV payloads to experiment with new hardware ideas in the actual martian upper-atmosphere. This team actually did something that still has me a bit stunned (NOT that it COULD be done but rather that government people chose to do it) - they designed a scheme to achieve the sim with a balloon, a solid rocket motor, and a borrowed US Navy test range. Assuming the next two tests in the series work as planned, this team will have a proven method of testing all sorts of space probe hardware (not just for Mars) very affordably right here on Earth. Tis saves time and money and will enable lots more innovation because more testing can fit within budgets and more risks can be taken.
Well Done!
Now if we could just get the other 99.99% of the government to act even slightly this responsibly and creatively...
This set was known since they started streetview.... Since then "do not be evil" is a motto which they carry out, but do not uphold themselfs!
*sigh*
EVERY planet's atmosphere is thin at the top and what you seem to have missed that the earlier post did not is that this enables the testing of large objects at high speeds in thin upper atmospheres. This sort of tech would be handy for any probe that might want to skip/skim through the upper whisps of any planet's gasses for missions involving things like aerobraking. It obviosly cannot simulate deep dense atmosphere effects, but for plunging down into those you'd use smaller parachutes and such after diving through the upper layers and the smaller hardware can be tested in smaller existing earth-based facilities