NASA is developing an inflatable heat shield it plans to test in 2016 that could one day be used to send astronauts to Mars.
Designed by NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, the IRVE 3, or Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment, could help overcome the difficulties of landing on the Red Planet, where the atmosphere is too thin for modern rockets or parachutes to safely land large spacecraft.
The heat shield was inspired by a children’s toy, the stacking ring of donuts. Inside the heat shield are inflatable segments covered in thermal blankets.
Upon entering the Martian atmosphere, the rings would be inflated with nitrogen into the shape of a mushroom, and the heat shield would slow the descent of the spacecraft in an atmosphere that is 100 times thinner than that of the Earth’s.
The technology will be tested on the next flight of the Antares rocket in 2016.
Because the heat shield is inflatable and lightweight, it would free up more room inside a spacecraft. It would also allow for spacecraft large enough to carry humans to land on Mars, unlike current heat shields which can only land rovers.
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