In January of 2015, NASA reached an agreement with the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service to test prototype fire shelters made from the space agency’s next-generation thermal protection systems (TPM) materials. These prototype shelters were tested for the first time in late June 2015, when NASA’s Langley Research Centre, University of Alberta adjunct professor Mark Ackerman, and the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service travelled to Fort Providence in Canada’s Northwest Territories to conduct series of controlled outdoor burns.
