Washington, April 2: A supersonic parachute designed for future missions to Mars has undergone a successful test in which it was sent very high up in the sky in a rocket from SA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The test was meant to mimic the conditions that a spacecraft would experience during a Red Planet entry, descent and landing, Space.com reported on Sunday. The successful launch of Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment or ASPIRE atop a sounding rocket on Saturday came after several days of delays due to rough seas at the parachute’s recovery zone in the Atlantic Ocean. The 18-meter-long Terrier-Black Brant IX rocket carried ASPIRE to a maximum altitude of 51 kilometres. The parachute unfurled shortly thereafter, while ASPIRE was travelling significantly faster than the speed of sound.