One of the most crucial factors to success in future Mars missions is the ability of a spacecraft to slow down after it has been traveling at a high velocity. NASA's solution to this problem is a piece of technology that comes in the form of what looks like a giant inflatable donut and will serve to help slow down spacecraft as they enter Mars' atmosphere.
While a mission to Mars won't happen until the 2030s, the space agency claims that with the new technology, the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD), it will take approximately eight months to reach the Red Planet.
The HIAD is currently in its testing stage at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. The piece of technology is an inflatable orange ring that works much like a parachute. When the spacecraft enters Mars' atmosphere, the ring uses the drag of the planet's atmosphere to its advantage and slows down the spacecraft, allowing for a soft landing. Furthermore, it also acts as a shield that protects the craft from high levels of atmospheric heat.
The heat shield technology has a diameter of nine feet and is made of Zylon and Teflon materials. It was initially tested using a vacuum pump, and throughout the process, engineers repeatedly checked it for damage.
"During testing, we used a vacuum pump to compress the test article into a small space," said Keith Johnson, a lead engineer for the project. "We packed and unpacked it and did thorough inspections to check for leaks and damage to the Zylon and Teflon materials. We repeated this three times."
The repeated packing was done in the same manner each time in order to determine how the material holds up to folding, packing and compressing.
"The test included all the components for the latest inflatable torus design, so it was a good final check to prove that the materials can tolerate packing," Johnson said. "After demonstrating the design and materials, we can focus on extending this to a larger scale."
With the initial tests were a success, the engineers can now focus on creating and testing a larger HIAD that can be utilized in a rocket and hold up to extreme temperatures.
"All these tests build on each other to help demonstrate the performance of the system, and in the end, we'll have a complete system that will be tested to show that it can meet the requirements for a space flight mission whether it's going to be returning a vehicle to Earth or future Mars missions," Johnson concluded.
