Testing inflatable heat shields for spacecraft

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Engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, are developing inflatable heat shield technology called a Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator that could be vacuum packed into a rocket, then expanded in space to allow more cargo or even humans to land on distant planets, like Mars. Here they are testing the packing of a 9-foot diameter donut-shaped test article to simulate what would happen before a space mission.

Published 2016-03-10 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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