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3 Jun

NASA Built A Flying Saucer And You Can Watch It Take Flight

By: Erin Ruberry

A flying saucer has been spotted on Earth -- but that doesn't mean you should start scanning the skies for little green men.

No, this is actually NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator, a test flight of which is planned for early June. (A June 3 launch at the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, was scrubbed but NASA has five other possible launch dates later this month.)
The saucer is part of NASA's Mars exploration mission; its test flight will "simulate the entry, descent and landing speeds a spacecraft would be exposed to when flying through the Martian atmosphere."

"The agency is moving forward and getting ready for Mars as part of NASA's Evolvable Mars campaign," Michael Gazarik, Associate Administrator of the Space Technology for NASA, said in a statement. "We fly, we learn, we fly again. We have two more vehicles in the works for next year."

A helium balloon will carry the craft to an altitude of 120,000 feet before dropping it.

"After release from the balloon, rockets will lift the disk to 180,000 feet while reaching supersonic speeds. Traveling at 3.5 times the speed of sound, the saucer's decelerator will inflate, slowing the vehicle down, and then a parachute will deploy to carry it to the ocean's surface."

Want to watch the flying saucer take flight? NASA will live stream the event on NASA TV.
Speaking of flying saucers, the aliens have made contact on Science Channel's Alien Encounters and in tonight's episode at 10/9c, children begin displaying an unusual ability as they connect to a powerful quantum supercomputer using only their minds.

Aliens may not arrive on a flying saucer, however. What other technology could extraterrestrials have?
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Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech