Thermal Management and Environmental Control of Hypersonic Vehicles

Hypervelocity endo/exoatmospheric vehicles experience extremely severe thermal conditions, requiring an integrated vehicle-wide approach to thermal management. The paper presents a discussion of key thermal management and environmental control issues with examples from two classes of vehicles, namely a Mach 6 interceptor aircraft and a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle. The elements of a general thermal management optimization methodology are discussed. Trade study results between a single-phase and a two-phase cooling loop used on the single-stage-to-orbit vehicle are also presented.