The physics of spacecraft re-entry

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Event details

Date 28.09.2015
Hour 10:3011:30
Speaker Elise Fahy, University of Queenland, Brisbane, Australia
Location
PPB 019
Category Conferences - Seminars
The successful progression of exploratory space flight from dreams to reality would not have been achieved without the ability to return the astronauts or scientific payload safely to Earth. A vehicle's thermal protection system (TPS) is critical for surviving the extreme velocities, heat and radiation experienced in the shock layer that surrounds the vehicle during re-entry. Currently, these systems are designed with excessive safety factors because the plasma physics and chemistry of radiating shock layers is not fully understood. Excess safety factors on spacecraft mean more TPS weight which could otherwise be used for scientific or human payload, or removed to reduce cost. To increase knowledge of the extreme conditions experienced during re-entry, data is required from flight, ground testing or computational methods. Flights are exceedingly costly, few in number and usually do not carry heat shield instrumentation, so remote observations are required. Ground testing and computational methods need further validation and verification, especially from flight data, to increase confidence in results.
The aims of this project are to recreate the flight spectra from a trajectory point on the Hayabusa spacecraft re-entry in expansion tubes and using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The University of Queensland expansion tube laboratory is a unique world-class facility that can recreate many aspects of hypervelocity flow, including plasma radiation from the shock layer over a scaled Hayabusa model, for comparison with the rare flight observation data from the Hayabusa re-entry. Further comparisons can be performed with advanced CFD for compressible, reacting flows. Matching flight data will validate ground testing methods and enable a more robust design process, refining the TPS through results of expansion tube experiments and CFD. With many new missions on the horizon, understanding re-entry processes for optimised vehicle design and mission confidence has never been more important.

Practical information

  • Informed public
  • Free

Organizer

  • Prof. P. Ricci

Contact

  • Prof. P. Ricci

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