Inflatable Heat Shield Reentry
Deceleration for atmospheric reentry, especially for higher-speed Mars-return missions, benefit from maximizing "the drag area of the entry system. The larger the diameter of the aeroshell, the bigger the payload can be." An inflatable aeroshell provides one alternative for enlarging the drag area with a low-mass design.
Such inflatable shield/aerobrake was designed for the penetrators of Mars 96 mission. Since the mission failed due the launcher malfunction, the NPO Lavochkin and DASA/ESA have designed a mission for Earth orbit. The Inflatable Reentry and Descent Technology (IRDT) demonstrator have launched on Soyuz-Fregat on 8 February 2000. The inflatable shield was designed as a cone with two stages of inflation. Although the second stage of the shield failed to inflate, the demonstrator survived the orbital reentry and was recovered. The subsequent missions flown on the Volna rocket were not successful due to launcher failure.
NASA launched an inflatable heat shield experimental spacecraft on 17 August 2009 with the successful first test flight of the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE). The heatshield had been vacuum-packed into a 15-inch diameter payload shroud and launched on a Black Brant 9 sounding rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. "Nitrogen inflated the 10-foot (3 m) diameter heat shield, made of several layers of silicone-coated fabric, to a mushroom shape in space several minutes after liftoff." The rocket apogee was at an altitude of 131 miles (211 km) where it began its descent to supersonic speed. Less than a minute later the shield was released from its cover to inflate at an altitude of 124 miles (200 km). The inflation of the shield took less than 90 seconds.
Read more about this topic: Reentry
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)