A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket boosted a high-power weather satellite into orbit early Thursday and then fired an inflated"decelerator" back into the atmosphere for a hypersonic re-entry in a dramatic test of heat shield technology that one day could help land astronauts on Mars.
"JPSS data is a major input into U.S. and international global numerical weather prediction modeling systems," he said."With JPSS, the quality of local three- to seven-day weather forecasts is outstanding. An artist's impression of the JPSS 2 weather satellite in low-Earth orbit with its single solar array extended.The launch and ascent went smoothly, but data confirming the deployment of its single solar array were not immediately received.NASA said in a blog post."There may not be an issue, but we're monitoring closely as more telemetry data becomes available."
Slamming into the discernible atmosphere near Hawaii at some 22,000 miles per hour, the spacecraft rapidly decelerated to subsonic velocities, protected by a heat-resistant coating. The re-entry vehicle was expected to experience a maximum deceleration of 9 times the normal force of gravity. It will take researchers time to fully analyze the stored data, but the benefits of hypersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerators, or HIADs, like LOFTID are potentially game changing.
Using current"rigid" structures that can fit in a rocket's nose cone, like those used for NASA's current Mars rovers,"we are limited to about four-and-a-half, five-meter aeroshell sizes," he said."That limits you to about one, one-and-a-half metric tons" of landing mass.
I’m still needing to know more about the accommodations for the 11 month one way trip to Mars.