Survey of European and Major ISC Facilities for Supporting Mars and Sample Return Mission Aerothermodynamics and Tests Required for Thermal Protection System and Dynamic Stability

Abstract

In the frame of future sample return missions to Mars, asteroids, and comets, investigated by the European Space Agency, a review of the actual aerodynamics and aerothermodynamics capabilities in Europe for Mars entry of large vehicles and high-speed Earth reentry of sample return capsule has been undertaken. Additionally, capabilities in Canada and Australia for the assessment of dynamic stability, as well as major facilities for hypersonic flows available in ISC, have been included. This paper provides an overview of European current capabilities for aerothermodynamics and testing of thermal protection systems. This assessment has allowed the identification of the needs in new facilities or upgrade of existing ground tests for covering experimentally Mars entries and Earth high-speed reentries as far as aerodynamics, aerothermodynamics, and thermal protection system testing are concerned.

Survey of high-enthalpy shock facilities in the perspective of radiation and chemical kinetics investigations

“…From the activities performed for Mars entry, it appears that F4 like others such as arc-jet facilities and HEG suffers from a loss of efficiency when using CO 2 as test gas. These losses can be estimated to be around 30% for F4 [11]. They are highlighted in Table 2 showing the flow conditions and composition upstream of the model for an initial flow of pure CO 2 .…”

“…Due to their large number, only a part has been included in this survey, a selection of shock-tubes and tunnels has been done by choosing facilities with performances close to those encountered during atmospheric entry. This trade-off has been based on previous efforts performed on reviewing European facilities [10,11,14]. To a selected list of shock-tubes and shock-tunnels, the F4 ONERA hot shots facility has been also included in, since such ground test produces non-equilibrium hypersonic flows and can be considered to be close to tubes.…”

“…As for the European ground tests the survey has been limited to the facilities operating in the hypersonic range. From previous reviews [11,14], we have deduced that the following facilities are of interest:…”

“…This is possible only for short durations, and as a consequence, facilities that can fit such requirements are shock-tubes, shock-tunnels, expansion tubes, and hot-shots [8]. So far, since the final stop of the shock-tube TCM2 [9], Europe has no more such experimental capabilities and this need has been identified [10,11]. As a consequence, ESA has fostered the development of a new facility dedicated to such fundamental studies [12].…”

“…ONERA [14] dedicated an extensive effort on aerothermodynamics testing in Europe and Russia, which is a very complete review but mostly focused on Earth suborbital reentry. Bugel et al [10,11] have performed a review for sample return missions and Mars entry capabilities in Europe, Australia and CIS, with additional elements on testing related to dynamic stability. However, this review is a general effort on aerothermodynamics and TPS testing, and additional efforts are needed focusing on chemical kinetics and radiation.…”