Mars is seen as the closest planet that will be a new human habitat in the future. There are water and mineral resources that make it a planet that can support a human population. Several countries and private companies are racing to send the first humans to the red planet.
As early as this November, NASA will launch the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) mission which will test the heat shield that will be used to send the spacecraft to the lunar surface. Usually heat shields use a hard construction with a ceramic surface but these heat shields will simply pop up like a balloon when they arrive at their destination.
With an umbrella-like design, the speed of objects that want to land on the lunar surface will be slowed down using the air resistance of Mars. In future LOFTID tests, the shield will deploy and then land on the surface of the ocean near Hawaii.
NASA has tested various landing systems since joining the space race in 1958. Last year the space crane system was used to land the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars and in 1997 the Pathfinder mission landed using an airbag system.