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The Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator or LDSD is a reentry vehicle prototype developed by NASA and intended to develop landing techniques of heavy vessels on the soil of Mars to include a return mission sample or longer term of a manned mission to Mars. The low density of the Martian atmosphere (0.6% of the Earth) limit, with current technologies inherited from the Viking program, the mass of the payload that can be deposited on the soil to a tonne. The maximum weight is reached by the Mars Science Laboratory rover (Curiosity). With the technologies used by the LDSD, this mass could be increased to 3 tons in the version tested in 2014 and 20 tons in a larger version which should be the last test.