Twelve Small Capsules, One 3D-Printed Heat Shield

When Northrop Grumman's 24th cargo resupply mission for NASA undocked from the International Space Station, it carried a fleet of 12 small, experimental capsules on the way out. Their job is to test next-generation thermal protection materials that could serve as the foundation for future heat shields.

One of them holds a heat shield made by 3D printing, designed by researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Reentry hardware is usually the conservative end of aerospace; a printed shield riding home on a departing cargo craft is the opposite of that instinct.