New Video Shows NASA’s Cool Flying Saucer In Action At Last

New Video Shows NASA’s Cool Flying Saucer In Action At Last

Video: At last, here’s the video of NASA’s LDSD test — the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator system that will take a new rover to Mars, one even larger than Curiosity. It’s impressive to see the entire system in action, working like clockwork even while the supersonic parachute display failed.

Listen to the commentary by Ian Clark explaining everything in detail, principal investigator of the LDSD, affectionately known at NASA as the Flying Saucer.

The NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project successfully flew a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle into near-space in late June from the UW Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii. The goal of this experimental flight test, the first of three planned for the project, was to determine if the balloon-launched, rocket-powered, saucer-shaped, design could reach the altitudes and airspeeds needed to test two new breakthrough technologies destined for future Mars missions.


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