Inflatable Heat Shield Could Help Land Humans on Mars

摘要

Nasa successfully tested an inflatable heat shield prototype July 23 that could one day be used for space exploration missions, including landing humans on Mars, its builders say. The Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment 3, or IRVE-3, was conducted at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. During the test flight, a small capsule was launched atop a suborbital rocket, and an inflatable heat shield was deployed in space before it plummeted back through Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic speeds to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean.