1 LOFTID Would Enable Landing On Other Planets
On Nov. 1, NASA plans to launch the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID), a giant disc that will travel into low earth orbit, inflate, then descend back to earth. It’s a heat shield intended to slow a spacecraft enough to survive entry into another planet’s atmosphere. Scientists hope it could someday allow humans to land on Mars. Keep reading to learn more and see the video.
2 Current Crafts Too Heavy To Land On Mars
Landing a heavy spacecraft—as weighty as one containing humans has to be—is a challenge on planets that have atmospheres, such as Mars. The thickness of the air in a planet’s atmosphere helps slow down an aircraft. But Mars’ atmosphere is much thinner than that of Earth. “The atmosphere is thick enough to provide some drag, but too thin to decelerate the spacecraft as quickly as it would in Earth’s atmosphere,” says NASA. A simple parachute, like the one employed by NASA’s unmanned Perseverance rover that landed on Mars last year, would be too weak to slow down a heavy manned craft.
3 Giant Inflatable “Brake” Could Make Mars Landing a Go
But NASA believes an “inflatable aeroshell” launched ahead of the craft might provide the solution. The heat shield could act, essentially, as a giant brake. Twenty feet in diameter, LOFTID would be deployed as a craft approaches a planet, allowing it to decelerate and protecting it from atmospheric heat. “This technology enables a variety of proposed NASA missions to destinations such as Mars, Venus, Titan as well as return to Earth,” the agency says.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb
4 Nov. 1 Test Launch Planned
On Nov. 1, NASA will try its first deployment of LOFTID, which will be launched on an Atlas V rocket. A successful launch could help the agency realize its goal of landing humans on Mars in the next decade. “This technology could support landing crew and large robotic missions on Mars, as well as returning heavier payloads to Earth,” said the agency.
5 Get Some Up-Close Looks at LOFTID
In June, NASA inflated a test version of LOFTID on Earth and published video of the shield, along with animations of what it would look like when deployed above other planets. In late September, the agency published a longer 90-second animation that shows, step-by-step, how LOFTID is intended to work during its test in low Earth orbit, from launch, to re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, to splashdown. Watch videos here and here.
