lloon will carry a test vehicle equipped with SIAD-R and the big parachute to an altitude of 23 miles (37 km). A rocket on the vehicle will then kick on, taking it to supersonic speeds and an altitude of about 34 miles (55 km).
The air is thin at such heights, so it serves as a good analogue for the Martian atmosphere, Clark said.
The SIAD-R and parachute will then deploy in succession. Researchers will analyze how the system worked, and they won't be terribly upset if something goes wrong.
"We're doing something that hasn't been done before," Clark said. "While I'm optimistic that things will go well, if they don't, that's probably even better, because we tend to learn more from the failures than from the successes."
Two more stratospheric flight tests are on tap for next year — one in June and the other in August. The current plan is for a SIAD-R to go on the June 2015 flight and a SIAD-E on the August mission, Clark said.
If all goes well, LDSD technology could make its way to Mars in the next decade or so. NASA plans to launch a Curiosity-like rover in 2020 to search for signs of past life on Mars. The 100-foot-wide parachute may be ready to go for that liftoff, but that mission probably won't need it, Clark said.
NASA wants the 2020 rover to gather and cache Martian samples for eventual return to Earth. The mission to retrieve those samples — whenever it launches — will probably require the big chute and perhaps one of the SIADs, Clark said.
"Looking even beyond that, we start thinking about human precursor-class missions — so, maybe something in the 2- to 3-ton [range]," he added. "That's something that a combination of a SIAD and our parachute would benefit."
And clustering four or five LDSD parachutes together could help land even bigger payloads, perhaps paving the way to put boots in Mars' red dirt.
"Now you're starting to talk about 15 tons on the surface, and those are human-class payloads," Clark said.