“The wave height is not conducive for safe recovery operations. The next launch attempt is Wednesday, June 3, no earlier than 1:30 a.m. EDT (7:30 a.m. HST),” they announced on the blog. The project is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and it’s supported by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This will replace current technology for decelerating from the high speed of atmospheric entry to the final stages of landing on Mars dated back to NASA’s Viking Program, which put two landers on Mars in 1976. The actual high altitude test at the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, will use a huge balloon to carry the 15-foot wide, 7,000-pound test flying saucer to high altitude. A booster rocket will then transport the spatial vehicle four times the speed of sound to a height of 180,000 feet. Descending to earth, the saucer is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.
