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In NASA's bid to land increasingly heavy payloads on Mars they've had to reinvent the parachute, and helping test these new designs is the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, or LDSD. The flat disc platform is lifted by balloon from the island of Kauai in Hawaii, then spin-stabilized and launched into the upper atmosphere to re-enter and test parachutes at air pressures and other conditions most like those on Mars. The second test is scheduled for June 8, 2015, around 1:30pm EST for initial balloon lift, with rocket burn and parachute test approximately three hours later. Should be quite the video if it goes anything like the first launch did.
UPDATE1: The full 4 hour Youtube video is now available for viewing.
UPDATE2: NASA's blog site reports:
Two experimental decelerator technologies – a supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator and a supersonic parachute – were tested. The supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator deployed and inflated. The supersonic parachute also deployed; however, it did not perform as expected. Data were obtained on the performance of both innovative braking technologies, and the teams are beginning to study the data.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:46PM
Compared to all the helium used in child's balloons one research balloon is a drop in the bucket.
We're only recently starting to do helium recovery of the gas when large liquid helium cooled NMR magnets quench. (I work in a chemistry department with large superconducting NMR magnets. This became a big issue a couple years ago when helium availability was about to get in dire straights due to some ill thought out legislation WRT privatizing the US helium reserve.)