NASA Launches New Technology: An Inflatable Heat Shield

embedFlashVideo("/379346main_irvelaunch2.flv","center","480","364","Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE) mission","/images/content/379352main_irve-overlay-480.jpg") Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE) mission A successful NASA flight test has shown that a spacecraft returning to Earth can use an inflatable heat shield to slow and protect itself as it enters the atmosphere at