Today's Nerdy Curio from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab presents the first flight of an advanced supersonic parachute system for Mars 2020—NASA’s next Mars rover. The test took place on Oct. 4, 2017, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. At the moment of full inflation, the parachute is going 1.8 times the speed of sound or nearly 1,300 miles an hour, and generating nearly 35,000 pounds of drag force—drag that would be necessary to help slow a payload down as it was entering the Martian atmosphere. This is the first of several tests in support of NASA's Mars 2020 mission.

Aired November 14, 2017

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