Experimenting Atmospheric Re-entry with the EXPERT Capsule
- Paper number
IAC-07-D2.6.08
- Author
Mr. Federico Massobrio, Thales Alenia Space, Italy
- Coauthor
Mr. Marco Caporicci, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Dr. Giuliano Marino, CIRA Italian Aerospace Research Centre, Italy
- Year
2007
- Abstract
The EXPERT capsule is a small atmospheric re-entry precursor vehicle with a generic shape, designed to perform a ballistic hypersonic flight in the earth atmosphere. The vehicle will land by means of a parachute after mission completion. The objectives of the EXPERT Project are:
- to perform a successful re-entry through the earth atmosphere without the use of ablative materials;
- to demonstrate the feasibility of using hot structures for re-entry vehicles;
- to enable low-cost in-flight data gathering of selected aero-thermodynamic (ATD) phenomena including qualification of conventional and advanced measurement techniques;
- to provide high quality data needed for the improvement of the ATD tools, aiming at the reduction of uncertainties and hence more efficient design solutions for future re-entry vehicles;
- to gain initial information on in-flight behaviour of various metallic and ceramic TPS materials;
- to conduct initial post-flight analyses of the vehicle behaviour.
The EXPERT vehicle will be launched from the Pacific Ocean into a sub-orbital trajectory by the Volna Russian launch system (submarine-based decommissioned ICBM) and will land in the Kamchatka peninsula. In addition to the validation of the re-entry vehicle design, the EXPERT vehicle will serve as a platform (bus) to accommodate a number of Payload experiments, which will measure key ATD phenomena during the hypersonic portion of its flight as well as monitoring of the behaviour of various TPS materials. The EXPERT vehicle flight data will be used to study ATD phenomena such as real gas effects on Shock Wave/Boundary Layer Interaction (SWBLI), roughness induced and natural boundary layer transition, catalycity effects, shock layer non-equilibrium chemistry, micro ATD phenomena associated to control flaps, etc. The actual flow fields on the vehicle during the re-entry will be used to validate and calibrate ground facilities and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools. Currently the program is entering the C/D realization phase under ESA contract with Alcatel Alenia Space as Prime Contractor and CIRA as Scientific Payload coordinator for a launch planned in 2009.
- Abstract document