Flying saucer takes off, but parachute snarls

This image taken from video provided by NASA shows the launch of the high-altitude balloon carrying this saucer-shaped vehicle for NASA, Saturday June 28, 2014 in Kauai, Hawaii. Saturday's experimental flight high in Earth's atmosphere is testing technology that could be used to land on Mars.  (AP Photo/NASA)
This image taken from video provided by NASA shows the launch of the high-altitude balloon carrying this saucer-shaped vehicle for NASA, Saturday June 28, 2014 in Kauai, Hawaii. Saturday's experimental flight high in Earth's atmosphere is testing technology that could be used to land on Mars. (AP Photo/NASA)

LOS ANGELES -- A saucer-shaped NASA vehicle testing new technology for Mars landings rocketed high over the Pacific on Saturday and deployed a novel inflatable braking system, but its huge parachute failed to fully unfurl as it descended to a splashdown.

Control room cheers that greeted successful steps in the complex test faded quickly as the parachute appeared to emerge tangled.

"Please inform the recovery director we have a bad chute," a mission official ordered.

The vehicle, called the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator, was testing methods for slowing big, heavy spacecraft hurtling into the thin Martian atmosphere.

Despite the parachute problem, "What we just saw was a really good test," said NASA engineer Dan Coatta with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

After taking off at 11:40 a.m. PDT from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the balloon boosted the disc-shaped vehicle over the Pacific. Its rocket motor then ignited, carrying the vehicle to more than 30 miles high at supersonic speeds.

The environment that high up is similar to the thin Martian atmosphere. As the vehicle prepared to drop back to Earth, a tube around it expanded, creating atmospheric drag to slow it down.

Then the parachute unfurled -- if only partially -- and the vehicle splashed down about three hours later.

Coatta said engineers won't look at the parachute problem as a failure but as a way to learn more and apply that knowledge during future tests.

"In a way, that's a more valuable experience for us than if everything had gone exactly according to plan," he said.

The test was postponed six times because of high winds.

Information for this article was contributed by Alicia Chang of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/29/2014

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