NASA Launched and Landed LOFTID, an Inflatable Flying Saucer Heat Shield - The New York Times

On Thursday morning, NASA sent a elephantine inflatable instrumentality to abstraction and past brought it backmost down from orbit, splashing successful the water adjacent Hawaii.

You mightiness deliberation of it arsenic a bouncy castle from space, though the radical successful complaint of the ngo would similar you did not.

“I would accidental that would beryllium inaccurate,” Neil Cheatwood, main researcher for the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator, oregon LOFTID for short, said of the examination during an interview.

LOFTID whitethorn dependable similar conscionable an amusing trick, but the $93 cardinal task demonstrates an intriguing exertion that could assistance NASA successful its extremity of getting radical safely to the aboveground of Mars someday. The bureau has landed a bid of robotic spacecraft connected Mars, but the existent approaches lone enactment for payloads weighing up to astir 1.5 tons — astir the bulk of a tiny car.

That is inadequate for the larger landers, carrying 20 tons oregon more, that are needed for radical and the supplies they volition request to past connected the reddish planet.

A much close statement of the instrumentality mightiness beryllium that it is simply a saucer, 20 feet wide erstwhile inflated. It is made of layers of cloth that tin past falling into the ambiance astatine 18,000 miles per hr and temperatures adjacent to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Still, an inflatable vigor shield shares a cardinal diagnostic with a bouncy castle: Uninflated, it tin beryllium folded and packed tightly. LOFTID acceptable successful a cylinder a spot implicit 4 feet wide and 1 and a fractional feet high. For a accepted rigid vigor shield, determination is nary mode to cram thing 20 feet successful diameter into a rocket that is not that wide.

A larger aboveground similar LOFTID’s generates overmuch much aerial friction — fundamentally it is simply a amended brake arsenic it slices done the precocious atmosphere, and the greater resistance allows heavier payloads to beryllium slowed down. For aboriginal Mars missions, the inflatable vigor shield would beryllium combined with different systems similar parachutes and retrorockets to usher the lander en way to a brushed landing.

On Thursday, the LOFTID squad did not person overmuch to bash during the countdown to liftoff astatine 1:49 a.m. Pacific clip aboard an Atlas V rocket. To debar the anticipation of causing problems with the main ngo — the deployment of a upwind outer — the LOFTID systems were not turned connected until an hr later, aft the outer was released.

The satellite, Joint Polar Satellite System-2 and present renamed NOAA-21 upon reaching orbit, volition measurement vigor emanating from the satellite done the ambiance to amended upwind forecasts.

After the upwind outer was deployed successful orbit, the 2nd signifier of the rocket, with LOFTID inactive attached, concisely fired its motor doubly to get LOFTID oriented decently for re-entry into the atmosphere.

Over the adjacent fewer minutes, compressed nitrogen state inflated LOFTID’s vigor shield, a acceptable of nested doughnut-shape tubes that looked similar a mushroom oregon a parasol popping retired of the apical of the rocket stage. To adhd stableness to LOFTID, the rocket signifier began spinning similar a apical astatine a languid 3 revolutions per infinitesimal earlier releasing the trial trade for its travel done the atmosphere.

A mates of hours aft liftoff, the LOFTID instrumentality was bobbing successful the Pacific Ocean astir 500 miles from Hawaii. Grainy infrared video taken from a betterment vessel showed LOFTID descending nether a parachute and past splashing successful the water.

“Everybody’s conscionable relieved and excited,” Greg Swanson, the instrumentation pb for LOFTID, said during the NASA Television broadcast. He was connected the betterment vessel connected the mode to the conveyance to propulsion it retired of the water.

The thought of inflatable vigor shields goes backmost a half-century, but determination were nary materials that possessed the needed spot and vigor resistance.

Dr. Cheatwood said that 2 decades ago, Steve Hughes, 1 of the pb engineers for LOFTID, work immoderate papers describing Russian efforts connected inflatable vigor shields. “I thought that it was a bully idea,” helium said. “Between the 2 of us, we were benignant of the ones pulling it together.”

That led to 3 tests a decennary ago. Those 10-foot-wide inflatable shields were launched connected suborbital rockets, fundamentally going consecutive up and past falling down. The LOFTID trial doubles the diameter, and due to the fact that the conveyance reached orbit, the re-entry was overmuch faster, generating much heat.

The occurrence means that the exertion is present acceptable to usage connected missions, Dr. Cheatwood said.

In summation to Mars, inflatable vigor shields could assistance landings connected different worlds with atmospheres similar Venus and Titan, the largest satellite of Saturn.

Closer to home, astir a twelve companies person expressed involvement successful the technology, Dr. Cheatwood said. “And that’s not maine going retired and selling it to them,” helium said. “That’s them contacting me.”

One is United Launch Alliance, the shaper of the Atlas V rocket that launched LOFTID.

Spurred by the occurrence of SpaceX, which regularly lands the booster stages of its Falcon 9 rockets, United Launch Alliance, a associated task of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, wants to yet reuse parts of Vulcan, its next-generation rocket, which is expected to alert for the archetypal clip adjacent year.

Unlike SpaceX, the institution is not looking to onshore the full archetypal stage.

Instead, the compartment astatine the backmost of the Vulcan booster containing the astir costly pieces — the engines — would beryllium jettisoned and past autumn backmost to Earth, slowed archetypal by an inflatable vigor shield, and past parachutes. A chopper would past drawback the descending motor compartment and instrumentality it to a ship. (Another rocket company, Rocket Lab, is trying a akin attack of catching rocket parts successful midair.)

A tiny start-up named Outpost Space is looking to make a caller abstraction concern that could usage inflatable vigor shield technology. In caller years, a slew of caller rocket companies has driven down the outgo of launching satellites to orbit. But getting thing backmost to Earth — similar cause samples oregon caller materials produced successful the near-weightless situation of low-Earth orbit — remains constricted and tricky. For now, that tin beryllium done lone with payloads taken to the International Space Station oregon perchance China’s caller abstraction station.

Outpost, however, thinks that galore researchers and companies would beryllium blessed to debar trips to and from a abstraction station, opting for overmuch shorter trips to orbit.

Mr. Dunn said Outpost was aiming to motorboat the archetypal orbital objection of its strategy adjacent year.

“It’s fundamentally a tiny level that allows the payload to run and to beryllium exposed to the abstraction environment,” Jason Dunn, the company’s main executive, said. “And past it returns. So it’s astir similar a precise tiny abstraction presumption that conscionable happens to travel backmost aft your mission.”

The Outpost squad came upon the NASA inflatable vigor shields and has signed a declaration for NASA to make versions it tin use. Once the inflatable vigor shield has shepherded Outpost’s spacecraft done the vigor of re-entry, a 2nd inflatable strategy — a paraglider — deploys, and the payload tin beryllium guided precisely toward a landing spot.

The imaginable customers for Outpost “can’t either spend the abstraction presumption circular oregon they request to get it up and down faster,” Mr. Dunn said. “What we’ve been capable to make is simply a strategy that tin alert truly abbreviated missions that we tin get successful abstraction and backmost successful a month.”