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The new technology, dubbed ADEPT (Adaptive Deployable Entry Placement Technology), stores as an umbrella folded inside smaller rockets, opening the handle in space to protect larger loads in the planet's atmosphere. project. The shape allows it to protect areas larger than the current heat shields.
"At larger scales, it could be used for something as big as human explorations on Mars or landings of potentially human goods on Mars," Smith told Reuters on Spaceport America, about 50 miles away. north of Las Cruces. New Mexico.
NASA is preparing to send a new robotic lander to Mars in 2020 and plans to send human astronauts in 2033. The rover will look for signs of life on Mars and demonstrate the technology that could help astronauts survive.
The goal of sending humans to Mars was set in 2010 during the administration of President Barack Obama and was confirmed by President Donald Trump last December.
Before NASA can send humans to Mars, it will have to land a lot of goods and the new heat shield could help if it worked, Smith said. The system could also be used with crew caps, protecting astronauts.
ADEPT, launched with a Spaceloft suborbital rocket manufactured by UP Aerospace, was tested at the southern New Mexico spaceport. It deployed between 100 and 120 kilometers before opening and returning to Earth, landing at White Sands Missile Range.
The data collected during the test will only be available once the shield has been recovered, officials said. Once implemented, the system will allow NASA to send more complex missions to other planets.
"Typically, heat shields are rigid structures, but this one can actually deploy in space," Smith said. "What this allows you to do is to work around the volume constraints of a typical launcher, long and thin."
The new heat shield can also be used to perform recoverable experiments in the Earth's upper atmosphere and send probes to Venus, Smith said.
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