Article Posted on : - May 19, 2014

An artistic illustration of the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) test vehicle in space. A NASA image

KAUA'I, USA (BNS): An experimental test vehicle designed to investigate "breakthrough" technologies for future Mars missions is being readied for flight testing by NASA next month.

The Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) - a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle - has completed final assembly at the US Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii ahead of its flight test on June 3.

"Our Supersonic Flight Dynamics Test Vehicle number 1 arrived at the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on April 17," said Mark Adler, project manager of the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator project from JPL.

"Since then, we have been preparing it for flight. One of the last big assemblies occurred on April 30, when we mated the vehicle with its Star-48 booster rocket."

The experimental flight test will involve a balloon which will carry the spacecraft from the Hawaii Navy facility to an altitude of about 120,000 feet. There, it will be dropped and its booster rocket will quickly kick in and carry it to 180,000 feet, accelerating to Mach 4.

Once in the very rarified air high above the Pacific, the saucer will begin a series of automated tests of two breakthrough technologies that will benefit landing future human and robotic Mars missions, as well as aid in safely returning large payloads to Earth.

Since the upper layers of Earth's stratosphere are the most similar environment available to match the properties of the thin atmosphere of Mars, the LDSD mission has developed this test method to ensure the best prospects for effective testing of the new and improved technologies here on Earth.

NASA plans to test two more such test vehicles from Hawaii in the summer of 2015 in order to gain deeper insights into conducting futuristic ambitious robotic and human expedition missions to Mars.