NASA Will Very Soon Test a Massive Inflatable Heat Shield in Low Earth Orbit

NASA just recently turned one sci-fi technology into reality by crashing a spacecraft into one asteroid with its Dual Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission.

Now, the space company aims to test a large inflatable aeroshell that can one day be used to deploy massive payloads on Mars safely and other planets in the Solar System, a post from NASA shows.

NASA’s Low-Earth Orbit Flight Examination of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) will run a huge inflatable heat shield– that looks remarkably like a flying saucer– through its paces early the following month.

NASA to release LOFTID the following month

When a spacecraft enters one planet’s atmosphere, aerodynamic drag transforms kinetic energy into warm, that assists slow it down as it descends toward the Earth’s surface.

Mars’s atmosphere is much less thick than the Earth’s, that makes the process of slowing down spacecraft extremely challenging– as has been observed on several occasions with Mars rover landings. The atmosphere is extremely thin to decelerate spacecraft as quickly as it would occur on Planet, implying entry into the atmosphere is much riskier and also requires even higher protection than it does on Earth.

That’s why NASA will very soon test its huge deployable LOFTID aeroshell. The agency will launch the massive framework on November 1th aboard a ULA Atlas V rocket. The aeroshell will be that objective’s secondary payload after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s JPSS-2 polar-orbiting satellite from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Taking the “terror” out of atmospheric entries

LOFTID’s aeroshell is basically a huge circular inflatable framework protected by a flexible heat shield. The six-meter-diameter (20 feet) aeroshell will function as a massive brake system as it takes a trip through the atmosphere, creating more atmospheric drag than traditional, much smaller aeroshells.

The structure is designed to permit spacecraft to reduce at greater altitudes in the upper atmosphere, meaning they will experience less intense heat. On its website, NASA states the “technology [will allow] a variety of proposed NASA missions to destinations such as Mars, Venus, Titan along with the return to Earth.”

For the upcoming demonstration examination on November 1, LOFTID will inflate as it descends from low-Earth orbit. If all goes to strategy, NASA says the technology could be utilized in future team landing missions and also for sending robotic missions to Mars and also returning heavier payloads to Earth.

Those that followed coverage of NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover goal will also remember the objective lander’s descent into the red planet’s thin atmosphere being described as one breathtaking “7 mins of terror”. During those critical moments, several of the mission’s ground crew feared the $2.7 billion rover may not make it down in a piece. One massive aeroshell like the one demonstrated by LOFTID would not eliminate all risks, yet it has the potentiality to make the gut-wrenching descents of beneficial cargo a lot less dangerous.

Read the original article on Interesting Engineering.