Watch NASA's new saucer fly to near space in this awesome video

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Wait. They took the test vehicle up to a high altitude with a balloon but wanted to simulate the kind of speed they’d have coming in for a landing on Mars, so they put a solid rocket motor on top of the thing pointed down? That’s awesome.

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42 thumbs up from a NASA fanboi

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Anybody know what the motor is? I looked on the JPL/NASA pages and they didn’t say. Looks like a slightly stretched STAR48 to me.

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Cool watching the de-spin, but I’d love to see a yo yo de-spin!

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Yes, it’s a STAR 48, unsung workhorse of dozens of space launches. See p8 of the press kit:

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Nice link, thanks!

(STAR series are great, I like my rocket motors measured in inches.)

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