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    Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) Overview

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    Fernando sarria
    NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project aims to develop and test new technologies to slow heavier planetary landers entering Mars' atmosphere, allowing for increased payload mass and landing accuracy. LDSD is testing inflatable aerodynamic decelerators 6 and 8 meters in diameter and a 30.5-meter parachute at supersonic speeds over Earth to prove their value for future Mars missions. Successful tests could increase Mars payloads from 1.5 to 3 metric tons and improve landing accuracy from 10 to 3 kilometers.

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    Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) Overview

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    Fernando sarria
    37 views2 pages
    NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project aims to develop and test new technologies to slow heavier planetary landers entering Mars' atmosphere, allowing for increased payload mass and landing accuracy. LDSD is testing inflatable aerodynamic decelerators 6 and 8 meters in diameter and a 30.5-meter parachute at supersonic speeds over Earth to prove their value for future Mars missions. Successful tests could increase Mars payloads from 1.5 to 3 metric tons and improve landing accuracy from 10 to 3 kilometers.

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    NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project aims to develop and test new technologies to slow heavier planetary landers entering Mars' atmosphere, allowing for increased payload mass and landing accuracy. LDSD is testing inflatable aerodynamic decelerators 6 and 8 meters in diameter and a 30.5-meter parachute at supersonic speeds over Earth to prove their value for future Mars missions. Successful tests could increase Mars payloads from 1.5 to 3 metric tons and improve landing accuracy from 10 to 3 kilometers.

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    37 views2 pages

    Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) Overview

    Uploaded by

    Fernando sarria
    NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project aims to develop and test new technologies to slow heavier planetary landers entering Mars' atmosphere, allowing for increased payload mass and landing accuracy. LDSD is testing inflatable aerodynamic decelerators 6 and 8 meters in diameter and a 30.5-meter parachute at supersonic speeds over Earth to prove their value for future Mars missions. Successful tests could increase Mars payloads from 1.5 to 3 metric tons and improve landing accuracy from 10 to 3 kilometers.

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    Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator

    (LDSD) Overview
    "The future comes slowly."
    -- Johann Friedrich von Schiller, 18th-century German historian
    As NASA 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.
    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. The basic Viking parachute design has been used ever since
    -- and was successfully used again in 2012 to deliver the Curiosity rover to Mars.

    NASA seeks 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. NASA's Low Density
    Supersonic Decelerators project, or LDSD, led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
    Pasadena, California, will conduct full-scale, stratospheric tests of these breakthrough
    technologies high above Earth to prove their value for future missions to Mars.
    Three devices are being tested. The first two are supersonic inflatable aerodynamic
    decelerators developed in 6-meter-diameter and 8-meter-diameter configurations. Both
    are very large, durable, balloon-like pressure vessels that inflate around the entry
    vehicle and slow it from Mach 3.5 or greater to Mach 2 or lower. Also developed and
    tested is a 30.5-meter-diameter parachute intended to further slow the entry vehicle
    from Mach 1.5 or Mach 2 to subsonic speeds. The chute tests incorporated two
    different designs: a disk sail, employing a single, durable piece of fabric; and a ring
    sail, a stronger, paneled variation sewn together in concentric rings on high-strength
    Kevlar material.
    All three devices will be the largest of their kind ever flown at speeds several times
    greater than the speed of sound.
    Together, these new drag devices can increase payload delivery to the surface of
    Mars from our current capability of 1.5 metric tons to 2 to 3 metric tons, depending on
    which inflatable decelerator is used in combination with the parachute. They will
    increase available landing altitudes by 2-3 kilometers, increasing the accessible
    surface area we can explore. They also will improve landing accuracy from a margin of
    10 kilometers to just 3 kilometers. All these factors will increase the capabilities and
    robustness of robotic and human explorers on Mars.

    To thoroughly test the system, the LDSD team will fly the drag devices several times --
    at full scale and at supersonic speeds -- high in Earth’s stratosphere, simulating entry
    into the atmosphere of Mars. The investigators conducted design verification tests of
    parachutes and supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerators through
    2013. Supersonic flight tests were conducted in 2014 and 2015 from the U.S. Navy
    Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. Additional development and testing is
    under consideration for 2016.
    The devices are expected to maximize the capability of current launch vehicles, and
    could be used in Mars missions launching as early as 2020.
    The LDSD project is sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and
    is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

    National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationPage Last Updated: Aug 3, 2017Page


    Editor: Lee MohonNASA Official: Brian Dunbar

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