Isro successfully tests IAD technology to land missions on Mars, Venus

The Indian space research organisation (ISRO) successfully tested the Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator for landing payloads on to Mars or Venus, and for recovery of spent stages of the rocket.

Isro successfully tests IAD technology to land missions on Mars, Venus

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has successfully tested the Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (IAD) that will be used for landing payloads on Mars or Venus in the future. The IAD is being developed for aerodynamically decelerating an object descending through the atmosphere.

The technology was folded and kept inside the payload bay of a sounding rocket that was launched from TERLS Thumba. The rocket took the IAD to an altitude of 84 kilometers where it was inflated and descended through the atmosphere with the payload part of the sounding rocket.

Isro said that the main objective of this mission was to demonstrate IAD technology for application in spent stage recovery and planetary entry.