NASA and United Launch Alliance (ULA) will host a media briefing on Tuesday, Oct. 11, at 1 p.m. EDT in advance of the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) technology demonstration. The briefing will be held via WebEx.
LOFTID is scheduled to launch Tuesday, Nov. 1, as a secondary payload with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations JPSS-2 polar-orbiting satellite from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
After hitching a ride to space aboard a ULA Atlas V rocket, LOFTID will inflate and then descend back to Earth from low-Earth orbit to demonstrate how the inflatable heat shield design can slow down a spacecraft to survive atmospheric entry. This technology could support landing crew and large robotic missions on Mars, as well as returning heavier payloads to Earth.
The briefing participants are:
- Trudy Kortes, director of Technology Demonstrations, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
- Joe Del Corso, LOFTID project manager, NASA's Langley Research Center
- John DiNonno, LOFTID chief engineer, NASA Langley
- John Reed, ULA chief technologist
