NASA develops a Technology that would take Humans to Mars
NASA is ready to prove a technology that could be used in the future to explore Mars.
It is a kind of inflatable flywheel that would act as a thermal shield when entering the atmosphere. It has been named as LOFTID (Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator) and NASA points out that if the technology is viable, it could be used to carry personnel, experiments and equipment for future manned missions. Its size could adapt so that large robotic and manned missions land on Mars, and also to bring more large loads to Earth. The shield that has been designed for this first case is six meters in diameter.
The objective is to unfold in the high layers of the atmosphere, allowing the spacecraft to decelerate before and is subjected to lower temperatures than those that have to support in the actuality of the systems that are sent to Mars.
When a spacecraft enters an atmosphere, the aerodynamic forces act on it and help to reduce the speed, converting its kinetic energy into heat. But the Martian atmosphere is much less dense than the one we have on Earth, which means a straight line for this aerodynamic deceleration.
As NASA explained in a statement, the Martian atmosphere is dense enough to offer some resistance, but it does not allow the spacecraft to lose speed as fast as the spacecraft that enter the Earth’s atmosphere do. Therefore, the aerodynamic detachable layer of LOFTID -an inflatable structure protected by a flexible thermal shield-, acts as if it were a giant brake while crossing the Martian atmosphere.
In theory, this design will allow the flywheel to start to lose speed in the higher parts of the atmosphere, so that it will decelerate before the higher altitude, while experiencing less intense heat. According to NASA, instead of decelerating the hypersonic speed (25 times faster than the speed of sound), the descent would take place at a speed of only 900 kilometers per hour.
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