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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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Ames atmosphere entry simulator and its use in determining characteristics of ethyl cellulose as ablative heat shield for ballistic missiles
Scout vehicle flight experiment to determine performance of phenolic nylon spacecraft heat shield material under reentry conditions
Spacecraft reentry flight tests for determining performance of heat shields made of charring ablating material
Design and operation of make wire, light pipe, and spring wire sensors to measure in-flight thermal parameters of ablative reentry vehicle heat shield
Refurbishable composite thermostructural heat shield panels for manned lifting entry vehicles
Radial skid and six segment heat shield concepts evaluated for Mechanical Impact System Design for Advanced Spacecraft /MISDAS/
Design and development of sensors for measuring ablative changes in space vehicle heat shield during reentry phase
Make wire, light pipe and spring wire ablation sensors development for measuring parameters of heat shield materials for reentry vehicles
Thermostructural analysis was performed on generic crew exploration vehicle (GCEV) heat shielded wall structures subjected to reentry heating rates based on five potential lunar return reentry trajectories. The GCEV windward outer wall is fabricated with a graphite/epoxy composite honeycomb sandwich panel and the inner wall with an aluminum honeycomb sandwich panel. The outer wall is protected with an ablative Avcoat-5026-39H/CG thermal protection system (TPS). A virtual ablation method (a graphical approximation) developed earlier was further extended, and was used to estimate the ablation periods, ablation heat loads, and the TPS recession layer depths. It was found that up to 83 95 percent of the total reentry heat load was dissipated in the TPS ablation process, leaving a small amount (3-15 percent) of the remaining total reentry heat load to heat the virgin TPS and maintain the TPS surface at the ablation temperature, 1,200 F. The GCEV stagnation point TPS recession layer depths were estimated to be in the range of 0.280-0.910 in, and the allowable minimum stagnation point TPS thicknesses that could maintain the substructural composite sandwich wall at the limit temperature of 300 F were found to be in the range of 0.767-1.538 in. Based on results from the present analyses, the lunar return abort ballistic reentry was found to be quite attractive because it required less TPS weight than the lunar return direct, the lunar return skipping, or the low Earth orbit guided reentry, and only 11.6 percent more TPS weight than the low Earth orbit ballistic reentry that will encounter a considerable weight penalty to obtain the Earth orbit. The analysis also showed that the TPS weight required for the lunar return skipping reentry was much more than the TPS weight necessary for any of the other reentry trajectories considered.
Solar Thermal Propulsion (STP) utilizes the sun’s thermal energy to create thrust, enabling rapid transit to interstellar medium via the Oberth Maneuver. For this, the system would fly very close to the sun, so an optical, “white” coating on a graphite substance is required to regulate the system’s temperature. However, standard heat shield coatings degrade over the STP heating profile of 2500 °K over multiple hours. Thus, an optical coating should be designed with the ability to control reflectance and microstructural evolution during operation.
Double wall ablative heat shield panels for manned lifting entry vehicles, noting nylon phenolic and elastomeric silicone ablators
The contradictory results obtained by investigators assessing the influence of finite-rate ionization on the radiative heating of probes entering the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn are discussed. Tiwari and Szema (1979) found that the radiation heating increased, whereas Leibowitz (1973) and Liebowitz and Kuo (1976) found that it decreased in relation to the results obtained when the ionization rate was assumed to be in equilibrium at the local thermodynamic conditions. The study presented here is limited to stagnation shock layers for nonviscous, hydrogen-helium plasmas with cold, nonblowing conditions at the probe heat shield. It is found that the radiative heating comes mainly from the Balmer region of the spectrum, where the shock layer is optically thin.
The results of a parametric study of corridor width and stagnation point heating are presented for a range of a probable mission designs and vehicle configurations. Entry velocities were varied from 6 to 10 km/s, L/Ds from 0.1 to 1.0, and ballistic coefficients from 100 to 500 kg/sq m. It is found that vehicles with an L/D of 0.4 to 0.5 provide an entry corridor width of at least 1 deg for velocities up to 10 km/s. For entry velocities below approximately 7 km/s, radiative cooling may be possible for the thermal protection system. It is recommended that, at higher entry speeds, ablative heat shields be used. Maximum integrated stagnation point heat loads were equivalent to or less than those experienced by the Space Shuttle on a typical reentry.
An investigation of the aeroheating environment of the Project Orion Crew Entry Vehicle has been performed in the Arnold Engineering Development Center Tunnel 9. The goals of this test were to measure turbulent heating augmentation levels on the heat shield and to obtain high-fidelity heating data for assessment of computational fluid dynamics methods. Laminar and turbulent predictions were generated for all wind tunnel test conditions and comparisons were performed with the data for the purpose of helping to define uncertainty margins for the computational method. Data from both the wind tunnel test and the computational study are presented herein.
Techniques for using fiber optics with Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) have been developed by IFOS Corp. for use in thermal protection systems (TPS) on spacecraft heat shield materials through NASA Phase 1 and 2 SBIR efforts and have been further improved in a recent collaboration between IFOS and NASA that will be described here. Fiber optic temperature sensors offer several potential advantages over traditional thermocouple sensors including a) multiplexing many sensors in a single fiber to increase sensor density in a given array or to provide spatial resolution, b) improved thermal property match between sensor and TPS to reduce heat flow disruption, c) lack of electrical conductivity.
New surface damage models are presented that predict the heat shield erosion due to dust particle impact when a spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere. Existing models were based on Apollo-era experimental data and approximate methods for tracking the dust particle trajectories through the shock layer. These legacy methods will be compared against new results based on more sophisticated particle tracking methods and recent experimental data.
Nuclear-electric spacecraft configurations for Jupiter mission discussing radiation shielding, heat rejection radiator, spacecraft structure, etc
Heating facility for testing ablative heat shield material models in combined convective and radiative heating environment with constant or transient heating conditions