With a looming 2020 deadline, NASA performed another test launch Monday of its new "flying saucer" spacecraft, the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, which is designed to provide controlled descent onto the surface of Mars during future planned missions. And how did the LDSD fare? Let's just say the mission had mixed results.

First the good news. The spacecraft successfully launched from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility at 7:45 am local time, in Kauai, Hawaii on Monday and all went well, initially. The LDSD, a large saucer-shaped disk, is designed to permit safe landings for both robotic and human missions to Mars. It is designed to slow down the entry of vehicles, enough for them to safely land onto the surface of the red planet, thereby eliminating the need to carry massive amounts of rocket propellant or heavy atmospheric entry shields.

Monday's mission actually tested two decelerator technologies: a supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator, which deployed and inflated as planned; and the supersonic parachute, which deployed but then tore apart, much the same way it did on a previous test mission conducted last year.

Engineers thought they had solved the problems of last year's failed test. Cameras mounted aboard the mission captured detailed imagery of the test, which they hoped would allow them to overcome issues of parachute degradation on this week's mission.

"We learned a great deal from last year's flight test and used that knowledge to improve the design and manufacturing of the hardware to enhance its strength and performance," said Steve Jurczyk, head of NASA's space technology mission directorate prior to Monday's flight. "So this year I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll have a fully successful flight test, but either way we're going to gain a tremendous amount of knowledge."

The previous test mission highlighted the complex logistics involved in supersonic deceleration.

"We start to glean a much better understanding of the physical processes that govern and dominate how these parachutes behave under these 2,000 mph winds," said Ian Clark, a principal investigator from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory about this latest parachute design. "We've got a lot of damage-tolerant capability such that if part of the fabric begins to tear, it won't propagate through the rest of the parachute."

"Overall, it's a much stronger, much more robust parachute that we think is going to provide another tremendous dataset for us and perform very well for us under these conditions."

Unfortunately, the supersonic parachute failed once again.

But the mission wasn't a total loss. The LDSD was carried to an altitude of nearly 120,000 feet before separating from its liftoff balloon, igniting its rockets, and soaring another 60,000 feet before testing the decelerators. Once the tests were completed, it splashed down safely into the warm waters of the Pacific, just off the coast of Kauai. NASA engineers will now begin the grueling process of sorting through the data, in order to perfect the decelerator technologies that will eventually deliver man and materials to Mars.