This is extremely crucial for our future solar system exploration goals since present heat shields only operate in the Earth’s atmosphere. If you attempt to land anything the size of the Space Shuttle on the surface of Mars, you’ll wind up with a very long streak spread over the Red Planet — or one very short crater if you’re very unfortunate. The atmosphere of Mars is just too thin to create enough friction against modern-sized heat shields to safely delay the Shuttle’s entry. So NASA is experimenting with an inflatable one.
