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A NASA parachute fails to inflate on reentry during a new test carried out by the agency yesterday.
The project is based on an interesting test which aims at investigating and implementing a brand new technology which will be hopefully used to land grander spacecrafts on the Red Planet, Mars. The agency revealed that it has also hopes that the new technology will be able to land astronauts on the arid soil of the planet as well.
Whats even more, this braking new technology will be able to at least double the mass of missions on the Red Planet, or so it is expected by the scientist of the agency. And they are also hoping that previously unreached areas on Mars could be targeted for the exploratory mission in the near future.
The test went wrong when the spacecraft started its descent and tried to detached itself from the balloon carrying it. The process of opening the parachute couldn’t go worse.
On a speed of about Mach 4, the supersonic parachute got altered when the process of its opening began. As a consequence, the necessary drag needed to slow down the spacecraft wasn’t quite enough, NASA said.
To explain the process better, the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) smashed the water at a greater speed, exposing the spacecraft to the possibility of grave damage.
The agency is striving to send an astronaut on Mars by 2030. But this involves not only tests to be carried out but also an improvement in the security of spacecraft processes of taking-off and landing.
Carrying tests is one thing, but sending a man safely on another planet is another thing altogether. And it is not the first project which NASA carried out on the same purpose that failed. Last year another parachute let down the scientist when it failed to inflate.
For the next year NASA has scheduled another test on the same project on Mars landing from U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii.
Yet, despite the projects’ failure, the agency still dubbed the experiment as a success.
“Once we successfully recover the data from the recorder and the data cards, the team will have met the success criteria for this flight,” head of NASA’s space technology mission directorate, Steve Jurczyk stated.
Still, much more development is needed in order to successfully launch a spacecraft on Mars, and bringing it back home safely.
Image Source: news.com.au
