An orbital drop pod into the atmosphere, slowing with a samara seed style opposing vane, then releasing a balloon and aerojet.
No sound as of yet. I'm not sure this is technically done yet, but I like where it's going and the plasma cone came out nice.
This one was interesting on a technical level. This is meant to be near-sci-fi; no worse than The Expanse. Closer, if I can manage it. We're talking about something which carries a few human beings, and needs to descend from orbit into an atmosphere but never reach the ground—that's maybe Mach 25+ down to blimp speeds. I know this has been bugging the engineers at NASA and JPL for a while too.
The orange disk is something similar to the inflatable kevlar/teflon disk I'm hearing about them experimenting with for high-altitude atmosphere entry; which is a great idea for equipment preservation. It also, I imagine, would scoop out a wider plasma cone around the craft and aid in heat insulation; but I'm not 100% sure about that.
After initial aerobraking, before it falls away, samara seed style vanes deploy from the top of the pod, running counter to each other for stability, so that the pod can steer a little while slowing itself through the atmosphere. It is about fifty times as dense as Earth's; so this might work well. The rotors are probably about three times as long as they would need to be, but my end goal is to reach my audience with beautiful biotech, so by all means! Lastly, a metal-foil balloon, resistant to acid, is rapidly deployed, along with aerojets from the sides.
The ultimate goal is not the surface (suicide!), but the air colony. I'm very proud of the actual colony's unique and organic design; expect to see it soon.