Ceramic Fairings for A Hypersonic Flight Experiment

Abstract

Fairings composed of Rigid Fibrous Insulations (RSI) were fabricated, instrumented, and coated using techniques that were recently developed at NASA Ames Research Center. These RSI components are part of a specific assembly of materials which were built onto a wing of a Pegasus flight vehicle. The assembly was designed to collect aerothermal data during a designated mission to deliver a satellite to earth orbit. The objective of the flight experiment is to validate the theory of boundary layer transition at flight speeds in excess of Mach 3. The actual flight experiment is scheduled to occur during the summer of 1998. Fabrication and installation methodologies will be discussed with a brief description of the wing glove assembly.