Ball Desiqns Draq Device for Future Moon-Mars Exploration

摘要

It looks like a doughnut and is part parachute and part balloon, hence the odd name ballute. Designed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., of Boulder, Colo., the ballute also is among the first systems being designed under a NASA contract intended to get the agency ready for future missions to the moon and Mars. NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate selected Ball Nov. 16 to begin work on the ballute, an inflatable, thin-film device that would be used to slow a spacecraft's speed.