NASA’s next Mars rover’s massive heat shield is finally ready for the robot.
It is the largest heat shield ever built for a spacecraft destined for the red
planet–not surprising since the rover is about the size of a small car and
could endure temperatures up to 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit when it enters the
Martian atmosphere.
Credit: Lockheed Martin
The heat shield is made from a novel material first used on Stardust,
a comet-sample-return mission launched in 1999. The material’s properties make
it ideal for high-peak-heating conditions such as those the rover, recently
named Curiosity, will experience as
it journeys to Mars.
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Without an adequate thermal protection system or heat shield, the rover
could burn up. This was proved tragically in 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia’s
heat-resistant shield was damaged during launch. The damage went undetected,
and the shuttle, left with a comprised system, lost structural integrity and
broke apart during reentry to the Earth’s atmosphere.
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However, the shuttle’s thermal protection system is a combination of reinforced
carbon-carbon on the wing leading edge, thermal blankets on the fuselage, and
thermal protective tiles covering the underside of the vehicle and the nose
cap. It is meant to shield against heat loads since the shuttle undergoes multiple
reentries. Curiosity’s heat shield is
a large aero shell that covers the rover and is made of a material called phenolic
impregnated carbon ablator, developed at NASA
Ames Research Center. The material is low density so it can withstand
searing temperatures, making it ideal for lunar and Mars missions.
The heat shield was manufactured by Lockheed Martin and is the largest ever
built for flight–it’s 4.5 meters wide including the back shell, larger than
the heat shields for the Apollo spacecraft (under 4 meters) and for the current
Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity
(2.6 meters). Uniquely, once Curiosity
enters the Martian atmosphere, parachutes will deploy to slow its descent, and
it will jettison its heat shield, using thrusters and a crane to reach the
surface of Mars. (Watch a video of how the rover will land.)
Curiosity (formerly known as the
Mars Science Laboratory) is scheduled to launch in
the fall of 2011. Its mission is to gather scientific data to help
determine whether there is or was life
on Mars.
