Dynamic Experimental Simulation of the Demise during Re-Entry Flight

Abstract

There are many limitations in ground testing in the laboratory, that prohibit fully realistic simulation of the destructive entry-flight. Some of these limitations could be overcome by technical solutions, others are determined by the physics (e.g. gravitational forces acting on the test hardware). The impact of the limitations varies and have been discussed in the community for years. One of the major limitations that could be solved technically, is the testing of satellite components in a static setup. Static testing does not reproduce the dynamic re-entry environment with its changing heat flux distribution and the inertial forces. The Department of Supersonic and Hypersonic Technologies of the German Aerospace Centre DLR constantly works on improving the test facilities, setups and instrumentation and has now developed a solution that allows dynamic demise simulation in the arc heated facility L2K. This development is complementary to the implementation realised in H2K wind tunnel for measurement of the heat flux distribution on spinning samples. We present the spinning device and wind tunnel setup and show results of the first component tests in L2K