NASA tests 'inflatable heat shield' which unfurls in space and helps space ships float gently down to a planet's surface
Taking inspiration from the Hollywood text-book, scientists at NASA are testing daredevil technology which will see space ships slowed down when they hit a planet’s atmosphere.
Their latest technology is a large inflatable heat shield, which was tested this week with a plunge through the Earth’s atmosphere while travelling at hypersonic speeds up to 7,600 mph.
The ideas is that as ship enter the atmosphere, the outer shell fills with nitrogen, which helps slow down the ship as it streaks towards the surface.
Film fans might remember Indiana Jones coming up with a similar strategy in the Temple of Doom, when he leaps out of a plane with nothing more than an inflatable raft to slow his descent.
The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) was launched by sounding rocket at 7am on Monday from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Vancouver.
The test was carried out to show that a space capsule can use an inflatable outer shell to slow and protect itself as it enters an atmosphere at hypersonic speed, for instance during planetary entry and descent, or as it returns to Earth with cargo from the International Space Station.