The Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator Preliminary Design is out!

Madrid, Spain, February 2020 – The EFESTO project achieved the preliminary design of the solution proposed to enhance Mars exploration and to enable Earth re-entry of the launcher’s upper stages. The re-entry system is expected to withstand external surface temperatures from 1240 °C to 1800 °C (1513.15 K to 2073.15 K).

The innovative design of the inflatable aerodynamic decelerator (IAD) adopts the annulus concept to improve stability, leading a new approach with what so far proposed for such technology (most of the projects involving inflatable decelerators consider stacked toroid).
The EFESTO team is assessing the efficiency of such new concept, that will be subject for tests during the next project phases. “The pressure distribution model to evaluate the wall heat flux is playing a crucial role to properly design the system”.

The TPS material and the layering are selected to withstand the high re-entry loads of re-entry trajectories. Moreover, one of the main challenges is to study the best folding and deploying strategy of the inflatable structure characterized by the flexible TPS layers.

The European Union H2020 EFESTO project is coordinated by DEIMOS Space with the end goals of improving the European TRL of Inflatable Heat Shields for re-entry vehicles (from 3 to 4/5) and paving the way towards further improvements (TRL 6 with a future In-Orbit Demonstrator). The Consortium include DLR, CIRA, ONERA, Aviospace srl, and Politecnico di Torino.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 821801.