T**********e
发帖数: 29576 | 1 NASA 'Flying Saucer' Launch to Test Mars Landing Parachute Tech
A saucer-shaped vehicle that could help NASA land big payloads on the
surface of Mars is about to take to the skies for the first time.
NASA hopes to launch its Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) test
vehicle — which the agency has dubbed its own "flying saucer" — Thursday (
June 5) from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii
. The balloon-aided liftoff was originally scheduled for today (June 3), but
the weather did not cooperate.
The LDSD project is part of NASA's effort to put boots on the Red Planet 20
years or so from now. The program is developing and testing technologies —
specifically, a 100-foot-wide (30.5 meters) parachute and two inflatable
devices known as Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators, or SIADs —
designed to slow the descent of heavy gear such as human habitat modules
through the thin Martian atmosphere.
One SIAD measures 20 feet (6 m) across, while the other is 26 feet (8 m)
wide. The devices are built to fit around the rim of entry vehicles like the
one that helped NASA's Mars rover Curiosity land in August 2012, slowing
them down by increasing their surface area (and thus their atmospheric drag).
During Thursday's test, a huge balloon will loft a test vehicle equipped
with the 20-foot SIAD and the monster parachute up to an altitude of 23
miles (37 kilometers). The vehicle will be dropped at this point, and an
onboard rocket will boost it to Mach 4 (four times the speed of sound) and a
height of 34 miles (55 km).
"Our 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," LDSD principal investigator Ian Clark, also of JPL,
said in a statement.
The SIAD will inflate, slowing the craft down to Mach 2.5. Then the
parachute — the biggest supersonic chute every flown — will deploy, paving
the way for what team members hope will be a soft splashdown in the Pacific
Ocean.
But the test will be instructive even if not everything goes according to
plan, officials said.
"We want to get that balloon to altitude, drop it and fire that [rocket]
motor. And if we fire that motor and we get data back from it, that is a
great day," Adler told reporters during a pre-launch press conference Monday
(June 2). "That way, we can learn exactly what happened and understand what
to do for our next flights."
Those other flights should come next year. NASA plans to launch two more
LDSD test missions from Hawaii in the summer of 2015. | T**********e
发帖数: 29576 | | l********g
发帖数: 6760 | 3 NASA拍电影技术一流，科研还要看中国的 --小将 | l******t
发帖数: 55733 | | m*t
发帖数: 7490 | 5 nasa先把载入航天恢复吧
那是正儿八经的做事
找个大忽悠在地球表面做些实验，跟草地上学游泳有什么区别？ | b****n
发帖数: 6896 | 6 真要搞这项目，就是作死。搞搞ppt还可以。
(
Hawaii
but
【在 T**********e 的大作中提到】
: 鳖造的玉兔像玩具车，还有很长的山寨路要走。
| m**********r
发帖数: 214 | | N******K
发帖数: 10202 | 8 nasa已经被三哥攻破？
(
Hawaii
but
【在 T**********e 的大作中提到】
: 鳖造的玉兔像玩具车，还有很长的山寨路要走。
| T**********e
发帖数: 29576 | 9
效果图啊，这些天在夏威夷飞行实验。
【在 l******t 的大作中提到】
: 第一张图是自拍吗？手够长的啊
| T**********e
发帖数: 29576 | 10
这就是自主创新，成功之前说啥的都有。
【在 m*t 的大作中提到】
: nasa先把载入航天恢复吧
: 那是正儿八经的做事
: 找个大忽悠在地球表面做些实验，跟草地上学游泳有什么区别？
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