593509main pia14836-full Mars Science Laboratory Parachute, Artist's Concept

Mars Science Laboratory Parachute, Artist's Concept

This is an artist's concept of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover parachute system.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will use the largest parachute ever built to fly on a planetary mission. The parachute uses a configuration called disk-gap-band. It has 80 suspension lines, measures more than 165 feet (50 meters) in length, and opens to a diameter of nearly 51 feet (16 meters). The parachute is designed to survive deployment at Mach 2.2 in the Martian atmosphere, where it will generate up to 65,000 pounds of drag force.

The parachute is attached to the top of the backshell portion of the spacecraft's aeroshell. In the scene depicted here, the heat shield portion of the aeroshell has been jettisoned and the mission's rover, Curiosity, is visible tucked into the backshell. The spacecraft's descent stage is also inside the backshell. When the backshell drops away, a radar system on the descent stage can begin determining the spacecraft's altitude and velocity.