Inflatables in space

Three years of their hard work plunged in the Atlantic Ocean in summer of 2012 and a group of NASA Langley engineers could not have been more thrilled.
They were part of the Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) team that is working to develop an inflatable heat shield. The technology could be used to protect spacecraft when entering a planet's atmosphere or returning here to Earth.
Watch as a 22-inch diameter rocket launches the IRVE 290 miles up and an inflation system pumps up its rings so it expands to 10 feet in diameter. Check out the Earth in the background as the inflatable heat shield reenters the atmosphere at speeds of Mach 10, then falls into the sea.