Techniques to Support the Aerial Deployment and Inflation of Venus Aerobots

The proposed effort focuses on two critical phases required for a successful Venus Aerobot mission.nbsp;nbsp; The aerobot platform is optimized for the science portion of the flight, it must first be deployed to Venus and inflated.nbsp; These are the two focus areas for the proposed Phase II effort.nbsp; Phase I developed a robust technique for providing a controlled deployment and supported the inflation process by helping align the envelope to prevent damage caused by excessive shock loads or flagging.nbsp; Phase I then culminated with hangar tests using off the shelf hardware, demonstrating the feasibility of the design.nbsp; Phase II will specifically address mission specific hardware, designed for the requirements of the Venus mission, and validate the deployment and inflation techniques with a flight test.