ballute

During descent, the crew cabin (the second stage) was planned to use a ballute to reduce its speed.

The ballute has been used as a retarding device for freefall bombs dropped from aircraft.

At Mach 2 a drogue ballute deployed and slowed the vehicle's descent.

When its velocity becomes subsonic, the second stage's ballute was to be released and pull out the three parachutes before splashdown.

They contain an inflatable bag (ballute) on the top of them, which slows them down and spreads them out.

This stabilizes the ballute as it decelerates through different flow regimes (from supersonic to subsonic).

The original ballute was a cone-shaped balloon with a toroidal burble fence fitted around its widest point.

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 additional to the more standard isotensoid ballute.

Armadillo Aerospace has been using a ballute in the testing of its STIG-A rocket in early 2012.

As the capsule is launched outward, the tension from a steel cable lanyard attached between the capsule and the chassis will pull a mechanism in the capsule that releases a ballute to decelerate and stabilize the capsule.

The US developed the similar M898 SADARM system (which also descended on a ballute to attack the top surfaces of armoured vehicles), but this was discontinued in favour of the GPS guided M982 Excalibur round.