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The ballute (a portmanteau of balloon and parachute) is a parachute-like braking device optimized for use at high altitudes and supersonic velocities. Invented by Goodyear in 1958, the original ballute was a cone-shaped balloon with a toroidal burble fence fitted around its widest point. A burble fence is an inflated structure intended to ensure flow separation. This stabilizes the ballute as it decelerates through different flow regimes (from supersonic to subsonic).
The ballute is either inflated by a gas generator or by air forced into the structure by ram air inlets.
Ballutes have also been proposed in stacked toroidal and tension cone form factors, in addition to the more standard isotensoid ballute.
Applications
The ballute has been used as a retarding device for freefall bombs dropped from aircraft.
It was used as part of the escape equipment for the Gemini spacecraft. It has been proposed for use during aerocapture and aerobraking. In the 1985 film 2010: The Year We Make Contact, a ballute is used on the space vehicle Leonov to establish a gentle orbit around Jupiter.
Extended designs using inflatable tension cone ballute technology have been proposed for deorbiting NanoSats and recovering low-mass (< 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb)) satellites from low Earth orbit.
Armadillo Aerospace used a ballute in the testing of its STIG-A rocket in early 2012.
Danish nonprofit aerospace organization Copenhagen Suborbitals is testing a ballute for its Nexo rockets as of February 2015.