NASAs new Martian braking system paving way to easier human colonization

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TORONTO If humans are going to settle on Mars, it means better technology will be needed to deliver heavier payloads. And NASA already has a plan for that.

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) revealed its Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators (SIAD) on Wednesday, a system that will be able to deliver 15 times the weight of the last payload to Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory, more familiarly known as Curiosity.

Mars has very little atmosphere (therefore less drag to slow things down), which makes landing there somewhat challenging. The exciting landing of Curiosityused several technologies, but it still relied on technology that was 40 years old, mainly a parachute.

But the parachutes that are currently available for landing on the red planet arent capable of being affixed to large payloads. Thats where NASAs UFO-looking braking mechanism comes in.

The atmosphere of Mars is extremely thin. Its about one per cent the thickness of Earths atmosphere, which means that in order to slow down, you need really big things to react against the atmosphere, more surface area, or drag area, and thats why you need bigger parachutes, said Ian Clark, Principal Investigator for the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) program.

READ MORE: Mars dirt a water reservoir, Curiosity finds

Eventually, humans are going to land on Mars, Clark said. And the task of sending materials ahead of time or even human beings themselves will require improved accuracy and heavier payloads.

When you start talking humans, you start talking masses 10 to 15 tons. MSL was a one-tonne rover, and that was a very difficult landing, in it took all of the technologies we had available, said Clark.

If we want to go bigger, were going to need something new.

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NASAs new Martian braking system paving way to easier human colonization