Protective Fabric

You don't get second chances on missions to Mars. As the world's largest manufacturer of Vectran®-based flexible composites, Warwick’s core fabric technologies helped to develop the mission-critical airbag fabric used in three successful rover landings on Mars: Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity.

NASA required an extremely lightweight but ultratough fabric to protect its vehicles from the jagged Martian surface. Warwick collaborated with ILC and JPL during the development of a multilayer soft goods approach for the impact-attenuating airbags. The outer protective layers shielded the inner gas-retaining layer against abrasion and puncture.

This multilayer solution met NASA’s challenging mass requirements. The resulting protective material was as light as a pair of dress pants yet stood up to the challenging Mars environment. The overall significant mass savings of the project helped make it possible for NASA to include the microrover, Sojourner, on the Pathfinder mission.