JPL Successfully Tests Its Flying Saucer in “Spin” Experiment

Like a gigantic pottery wheel, Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Martian saucer landing craft spun round and round Tuesday as fast as 30 times a minute in one its final tests before it is shipped off to Kauai, Hawaii, in June.

During the “spin table test,” the 15-foot-wide, 7,000-pound Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) test vehicle was spun and closely monitored to check its balance. The next major test will come when NASA flies the rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle into near-space from the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility.

The LDSD replaces current technology for decelerating from the high speed of atmospheric entry to the final stages of landing on Mars dates back to NASA’s Viking Program, which put two landers on Mars in 1976. It has worked successfully — but is really a basic parachute.

As JPL plans ambitious new robotic missions to Mars, laying the groundwork for even more complex human science expeditions to come, the spacecraft needed to land safely on the red planet’s surface necessarily becomes increasingly massive, hauling larger payloads to accommodate extended stays on the Martian surface.

Thus, the space saucer shape design evolved.

JPL hopes to use atmospheric drag as a solution, saving rocket engines and fuel for final maneuvers and landing procedures. The heavier planetary landers of tomorrow, however, will require much larger drag devices than any now in use to slow them down — and those next-generation drag devices will need to be deployed at higher supersonic speeds to safely land vehicle, crew and cargo.

In mid-April, the vehicle will be flown to Kauai. During the June experimental flight test, a balloon will carry the test vehicle from the naval facility to an altitude of about 120,000 feet (36 kilometers). There, over the Pacific, it will be dropped and its booster rocket will kick in and carry it to 180,000 feet (55 kilometers), 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.

The supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator (SIAD-R) — essentially an inflatable doughnut that increases the vehicle’s size and, as a result, its drag — will be deployed at about Mach 3.8. It will quickly slow the vehicle to Mach 2.5 where the parachute — the largest supersonic parachute ever flown — will deploy. About 45 minutes later, the saucer is expected to make a controlled landing onto the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii.

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 developed this test method to ensure the best prospects for effective testing of the new and improved landing technologies here on Earth.

The LDSD crosscutting demonstration mission will test breakthrough technologies that will enable large payloads to be safely landed on the surface of Mars, or other planetary bodies with atmospheres, including Earth. The technologies will not only enable landing of larger payloads on Mars, but also allow access to much more of the planet’s surface by enabling landings at higher-altitude sites.

More information about the LDSD space technology demonstration mission is online by clicking here.