Pridwen Heatshield

Pridwen is a novel heatshield developed by Space Forge, named after the legendary shield of King Arthur. Its primary purpose is to ensure safe atmospheric re-entry and satellite recovery. Unlike standard heat shields that rely on ablation, Pridwen combats heat flux through radiation, utilizing high-temperature materials. Its unique shuttlecock-style design also functions as a parachute, enabling a safe landing for descending satellites. The product’s development has been advanced through parabolic flight experiments, where data was gathered on both nominal (full) and off-nominal (partial) deployments. These learnings will be applied to the deployment of the shield on the Forgestar-1 mission, bringing Space Forge closer to demonstrating Pridwen’s first full deployment in orbit. This technology is a crucial step towards making space manufacturing scalable, sustainable, and repeatable.