NASA's massive heavy-lift balloon which took off from Wanaka in New Zealand last month has been brought down before its scheduled landing over central Australia.

As per officials the 4000kg's of 'super pressure' balloon had to be brought down because of a leakage suspicion.

The massive balloon, 90 meters in diameter, was meant to stay aloft 34km above the earth's surface for almost 100 days. The balloon had to end its flight only after 32 days, confirmed NASA.

Controllers of the balloon detected a leakage and immediately issued flight termination commands.

The balloon landed in a remote area near the Queensland and NSW border just east of Sturt National Park.

A map of the balloon's progress showed it had been flying over the Southern Ocean before it tracked north to land.

This was balloons test flight which aimed to assess the feasibility of using such balloons in NASA's research programme after 15 years of development, and of Wanaka's suitability as a permanent launch site.

The balloon on its test flight, carried a 2268kg payload, including ballast and tracking and telemetry systems.

The balloon program's chief Debbie Fairbrother, said, "While we hoped for more days at float, we exceeded our pre-established minimum success criteria of 10 days by threefold in the balloon's most demanding test yet".

Usually heavy-lift zero-pressure balloons could vary in altitude by up to 13.7km but the Wanaka balloon, which was specially designed to maintain positive internal pressure and shape stayed at a steady 33.5km for its flight, said Debbie.

Debbie told that when the balloon system was over an area that was safe for ending the flight, a command was sent to separate the payload from the balloon.