NASA and ULA Successfully Test a Giant Inflatable Heat Shield That Could Land Heavier Payloads on Mars

A new type of heat shield was successfully tested last week, with the hope that this type of inflatable decelerator could be used in the future to land humans on Mars or other planets.

The ULA Atlas V rocket was used to launch the Low- Earth Orbit Flight Test of an inflatable Decelerator. LOFTID was used on the launch of the weather satellite.

The ablative heat shields that have been used in the past have a limit on the amount of cargo they can deliver. The human enterprise on Mars could be made possible with the use of inflatable decelerators.

The LOFTID is the largest blunt body aeroshell to ever reenter from space.

At a pre-launch briefing in October, Joe Del Corso, LOFTID project manager, said that the size of the Aeroshell was limited to no more than five meters. It's not possible to deliver a large amount of cargo to the surface of Mars.

A larger aeroshell that uses inflatable technology could be able to carry up to 40 metric ton of cargo. He said that larger aeroshells would allow access to higher terrains on Mars where the atmosphere is not dense enough to slow down vehicles.

The LOFTID was inflated and then reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. Engineers were able to review the data on how well it worked after the aeroshell and data recorder were recovered. In case LOFTID and the primary data recorder were lost at sea, a backup data recorder module was thrown into the air.

In 2012 a prototype for a large inflatable heat shield was tested successfully after launching on a sounding rocket and surviving a hypersonic speeds through Earth's atmosphere. Future tests will be informed by the data from this test.

LOFTID is made from a stack of tori consisting of braided synthetic fibers that are ten times stronger than steel. The rings of the reentry system are protected from heat in excess of 1,600 C. The heat shield takes up less space in a vehicle.

The LOFTID technology creates more drag than traditional heat shields and decelerates in the upper levels of the atmosphere, according to NASA.

NASA associate administrator Jim Reuter said flight test is one of the main ways to expand capabilities for future missions. The technology demonstration was performed in conjunction with JPSS-2's launch.