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It's great and useful for smaller probes but as we've sent larger and larger probes the thin Martian atmosphere has been less and less useful. One of the major
by rtkwe 9y ago
It's great and useful for smaller probes but as we've sent larger and larger probes the thin Martian atmosphere has been less and less useful. One of the major issues is that the mass keeps going up but the surface area of the heat shields we can reasonably bring along doesn't scale as well. There's some hopes in inflatable technologies though.
- simonh 9y agoThat is a good point. Red Dragon was only feasible by adding an asymmetric sled under the capsule to provide lift, so it could spend significantly longer braking through the atmosphere. Also the ITS video and presentation shows it using it's lifting body design to maximise time up in the atmosphere. At that scale straightforward aeroshells don't cut it, but you can still get a useful effect.