NASA to soon test huge inflatable heat shield in low Earth orbit

Recently, NASA made science fiction technology a reality when a spacecraft on the DART mission collided with an asteroid to change its orbit. The goal was to find out whether in the future people will be able to save planet Earth from possible and dangerous impacts of asteroids.

Now the space agency aims to test a large inflatable shield that could one day be used to safely land large payloads on Mars and other planets in the solar system, NASA said.

 

The respective LOFTID mission will launch next month

NASA's new LOFTID (Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator) mission, which looks remarkably like a flying saucer, will launch into space early next month.

When a spacecraft enters a planet's atmosphere, the force of air resistance converts kinetic energy into heat, which helps slow it down as it descends toward the planet's surface.

Mars' atmosphere is much less dense than Earth's, which makes it extremely difficult to decelerate a spacecraft during landing. This has been seen many times during the landings of Mars rovers. The atmosphere is too thin to slow down spacecraft as it does on Earth, which means that entering the Martian atmosphere is much more risky and requires even greater protection than on Earth. That is why NASA will test its LOFTID mission on November 1 – and with the ULA Atlas V rocket.

Landing of space crews, robots, lowering of heavy loads

The LOFTID air shield is essentially a large circular inflatable structure protected by a flexible heat shield. A six-meter (20-foot) diameter air shield will act as a mass braking system as it passes through the atmosphere, creating a greater atmospheric resistance than conventional, much smaller air shields.

The structure is designed to allow spacecraft to slow down in the upper atmosphere, meaning they will experience less intense heat. NASA says that this technology could be used in a number of NASA-proposed missions to such destinations as Mars, Venus, and Titan. It can also be used when returning to Earth.

In a demonstration test on Nov. 1, LOFTID will inflate during descent from low Earth orbit. If all goes according to plan, NASA says the technology could be used in the future to land crews and send robotic missions to Mars and return heavier payloads to Earth.