Recent Advancements in Design and Flight Testing of Thermal Protection Systems for Atmospheric Entry at DLR Insitute of Structure and Design

Abstract

The future of space transportation systems for plane-tary exploration strongly relies on the development of efficient and reliable technologies for thermal protec-tion system (TPS), in order to broaden the capabilities in terms of non-desruptive entry and descent phase both in the atmosphere of the target planet and, for example, for the sample return to Earth. In this framework, data collected during sounding rocket flight experiments are of fundamental importance, both for compensating the deficits of ground experi-mental testing in duplicating a real flight environment and for providing valuable data for the definition and validation of reliable numerical tools. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has taken part in the last years to several projects for the design and construction of sounding rockets and the opera-tion of flight experiments with the objective of demon-strating advanced technologies and materials for reus-able space transportation systems. In some of the previous flight experiments [1, 2, 3] the objective was to test the TPS for different critical parts in hypersonic conditions with Mach numbers up to 10; other upcom-ing programs [4, 5] focus on technologies for aerody-namic active control, propellant management, ap-proach and landing in subsonic up to supersonic flight with nominal Mach numbers up to maximum 5. After a general overview on these past and current missions, the present work will focus on the activities carried out for the two most recent flight experiments and the corresponding main achivements and meas-ured data obtained during the flight.