A flying saucer is scheduled to break the sound barrier 180,000 feet above Kauai in June.

But don’t worry, this is no UFO. And definitely don’t expect any little green men.

NASA is testing out a new vehicle with technology that it hopes will one day allow humans to safely fly through Martian airspace and land on the Red Planet.

The space agency wants to simulate entry, descent and land speeds that the aircraft would experience once it’s entered the Mars atmosphere.

To do this, the saucer will be carried to an altitude of 120,000 feet via giant balloon. Rockets will then propel the spacecraft to 180,000 feet, where it will travel at 3.5 times the speed of sound.

While that might be impressive, the real test comes when the saucer’s decelerator inflates to slow the vehicle down and a parachute is deployed for the trip back to Earth.

Check out this YouTube video to see how NASA previously tested its parachute technology:

The flight test is part of NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator experiment, and it will take place at the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility Barking Sands on the west side of Kauai.

A press release about the experiment says NASA has a six day launch window on specific dates between June 3 and June 13.

NASA expects to live stream the launch and decent using cameras affixed to the flying saucer, and will post launch advisories on Twitter and the mission website.

Photo: NASA’s flying saucer technology that will be deployed above Kauai in June. (Courtesy of nasa.gov)

—Nick Grube