Thermal Engineering of Mars Entry Carbon/Carbon Non-Ablative Aeroshell - Part 3
2001-01-2279
07/09/2001
- Event
- Content
- This is Part 3 of a development program to evaluate candidate nonablative aeroshell designs. The primary goal of this C/C aeroshell development task was to demonstrate the feasibility and performance of a lightweight C/C non-ablative aeroshell design that integrates advanced C/C materials and structural configurations. The thermal performance was evaluated by Arc Jet testing at NASA Ames of representative structural models. In this phase of the program, new carbon-carbon materials and structural core designs were evaluated, as well as an alternative aerogel material. The test models were composed of a quasi-isotropic Carbon/Carbon(C/C) front face sheet (F/S), eggcrate or honeycomb core, C/C back F/S, Carbon and resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogel insulation. Part One of this work [1] demonstrated the feasibility through arc-jet testing and Part Two [2] included analytical modeling of the test geometry to validate the design. In this work alternative carbon-carbon material, core construction and oxidation resistant coatings were used as the design variables. Testing was conducted on six test models with the arc jet temperature at nominally 1500 °C. Three design configurations successfully maintained the rear surface below 150°C during 45 seconds of exposure.
- Pages
- 7
- Citation
- Hickey, G., Lih, S., and Shih, W., "Thermal Engineering of Mars Entry Carbon/Carbon Non-Ablative Aeroshell - Part 3," SAE Technical Paper 2001-01-2279, 2001, https://doi.org/10.4271/2001-01-2279.