LOS ANGELES The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided Friday to postpone a planned test flight of an unpiloted experimental aircraft for due to high winds. "The jet stream is too strong and broad," said Allen Brown, spokesman for the Dryden Flight Research Center at California's Edwards Air Force base. "It would have blown the aircraft, of course." With an eye toward reaching new heights in sustained horizontal flight, NASA will try the test of its giant solar-powered wing, Helios, on Saturday, when the craft is expected to soar to at least 24,000 meters (80,000 feet). "It's looking actually quite good" for favorable weather conditions on the new test date, Brown said. Helios is scheduled to take off from the Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility on the Hawaiian island of Kauai for the 12-to-14-hour trial flight. Eventually, researchers hope the craft could reach heights of 30,000 meters (100,000 feet) -- the goal for a scheduled flight in late July -- but some feel it could surprise everyone and reach the record-breaking altitude during the test. "This will be a checkout flight, but it is entirely possible that if everything goes well, the aircraft could go higher than 80,000 feet (24,000 meters)," Brown said Thursday. The standing altitude record of more than 24,500 meters (80,400 feet) was set in Kauai in 1998 by Pathfinder Plus, a smaller version of Helios. Developed by the Monrovia, California-based firm Aerovironment, Helios features 14 propellers powered by motors that consume about as much energy as a standard hair dryer. "The real laboratory for the airplane, the real crucible for validating its technologies, is in the air in flight, and there's no other way to do it," said Helios program manager John Hicks. "No wind tunnel could take this airplane; it's too big." With a wingspan of some 75 meters (247 feet), Helios is wider than a Boeing 747 but not nearly as fast: It takes off at the speed of a bicycle and travels at a cruising speed of 30 to 50 kilometers (18 to 31 miles) per hour. The vanguard of a new type of aircraft, Helios was created to serve as a sort of versatile flying satellite, capable both of staying in the same place for months at a time and traveling at a leisurely pace, depending upon the needs or demands of a mission. According to NASA, it could eventually be used as a relatively inexpensive telecommunications satellite or a scientific observation satellite. From creation to launch, the average satellite costs between 10 million and $30 million, while Helios's price tag is estimated at a mere $1 million. NASA also believes the Helios program could hold new possibilities for future space exploration missions. Engineers hope to gain a better understanding of how the aircraft behaves at an altitude of 30,000 meters, where the atmospheric density is similar to that of Mars.