NASA Parachute Test Breaks Record

NASA is preparing technology for use on its Mars 2020 rover mission, due to land on the Red Planet in February 2021 — and it's breaking world records along the way. Landing on Mars is notoriously challenging because of the planet's thin atmosphere, which makes it difficult to slow down a spacecraft enough to land gently on its surface. In order to land their heaviest yet rover on Mars, NASA had to redesign an existing landing-parachute design — the same one that protected the Curiosity rover — with even stronger materials, including the Kevlar traditionally found in bulletproof vests.

Last month, the 180-pound parachute, plus a camera designed to watch it deploy, was launched on a sounding rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The agency conducted its final test of its new parachute in September as part of its Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE) project. The results are in and the parachute has been approved for the 2020 launch. During the test, the parachute deployed completely in just four-tenths of a second, the fastest inflation of such a large parachute, according to NASA. That will mark the end of the parachute tests, but not the end of Mars 2020 preparations.

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https://www.space.com/42282-mars-2020-parachute-test-breaks-world-record.html