Design

Given the multi-disciplinary nature of inflatable heat shields design, expertise in the fields of materials, structures, aerothermodynamics, mission engineering and system design is needed. Expertise and modern numerical tools are available in the consortium to support the engineers in the detailed assessment of performance in each of the above mentioned areas; moreover, concurrent engineering design and multi-disciplinary optimisation techniques are mastered by the team to support the trade-off and conceptual design phases in a cohered and structured way.
Efforts will be concentrated on the design of inflatable heat shields as the novel element of a re-entry vehicle to enable future missions beyond current capabilities.

The expected performances will allow to chose landing sites  above the Mars sea level (MOLA 0) that systems based on classical rigid heatshields would not be feasible to achieve being outside of the available corridor.

The design phase will run from conceptual design to detailed design and will cover two mission applications: Mars exploration missions and applications for RLV on Earth.