This is NASA’s Thermal Space Shield’s key to conquering Mars.

It looks like an umbrella made from the remains of balloons and a tarp, but it’s actually a NASA-designed heat shield that can withstand temperatures of 1600º C. The agency has created an umbrella from advanced materials. shield Super resistant to heat and abrasion.

Hypersonic inflatable aerodynamic moderator (HIAD) technology has been in development for over a decade. An inflatable heat shield, unlike rigid heat shields, can be packaged down to a very small size and then deployed at a much larger scale, which is the key to rocket.

The inflatable heat shield demonstration (LOFTID) is the next step in the development of this technology, which could one day help land humans on Mars, they explain on NASA’s website.

LOFTID will be launched as a secondary payload with the Joint Polar Satellite System-2. (JPSS-2) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. in November 2022.

After separating the JPSS-2 from the upper stage of the rocket LOFTID will inflate and re-enter the atmosphere to see if it can successfully slow down large payloads. -for example, manned spacecraft, lunar rover, or key components- allowing them to experience the warmth of re-entry.

How do you survive in extreme heat?

To survive with such an incredible amount of energy, the LOFTID thermal protection system comes into play. The LOFTID aeroshell consists of an inflatable structure and a flexible thermal protection system.built from advanced materials with high temperature limits.

The thermal protection system consists of four elements. First, the outer fabric is a woven silicon carbide ceramic that is turned into a fiber so small in diameter that it can be knitted and woven into a thread.

Under the outer ceramic layers are two types of flexible insulation to prevent high outside temperatures from reaching the gas-tight barrier – the fourth component of the thermal protection system – and to the inflatable structure.

NASA’s inflatable structure is a stack of rings stacked on top of each other. The rings are made from a synthetic polymer that is 10 times stronger by weight than steel, making the assembly flexible enough to compress on launch yet strong enough to stay stiff when inflated.