Stardust Sample Return Capsule Design Experience

Willcockson, William H.

doi:10.2514/2.3468

Cited by 60 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The values are in good agreement, suggesting that Eq. (8) can be used to estimate the total mass loss rate. Figure 17 shows the time course of the surface temperature for 120 s under a heat flux of 2.0 MW/m 2 , 11) whereas Fig.…”

Section: Thermochemical Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although this spacecraft was exposed to approximately 8.5 MW/m 2 of severe heat flux, it was able to return safely. 7,8) The lightweight PICA functioned perfectly as the heat shield material.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3) NASA previously developed a lightweight CFRP called the phenolic impregnated carbon ablator (PICA), which has a density that ranges from 224 to 1,041 kg/m 3 . 5,6) A PICA with a density of 270 kg/m 3 was used as the heat shield material for the Stardust spacecraft, 7,8) which collected a sample from the comet Wild-2. Although this spacecraft was exposed to approximately 8.5 MW/m 2 of severe heat flux, it was able to return safely.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Thermochemical Performance of a Lightweight Charring Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic

Okuyama

Kato

Ohya

2013

Trans. Japan Soc. Aero. S Sci.

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A new class of lightweight carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP)-the lightweight ablator series for transfer vehicle systems (LATS)-has recently been developed. The LATS is fabricated by heating and pressurizing a material in which resin is impregnated in the laminated carbon fiber felt. A characteristic required to ensure the excellence of a conventional lightweight CFRP ablator of the LATS is the simplicity of the resin impregnation process. Since dried bulk density can be easily controlled, this manufacturing method is beneficial for use in the aerospace industry. Here, the ablation characteristics of this material under high-enthalpy airflow are described by a recently developed computer code to simulate the one-dimensional transient thermal behavior. The validity of the mathematical model and the applicability of the ablation code are then discussed by comparing the simulated and experimental results of arc-heated tests with the LATS. A new index adopted in this study predicted the mass loss rate; the measured and estimated values of the total mass loss rate in various test conditions are in good agreement. Thus, a heated LATS material shows excellent performance characteristics for use in re-entry vehicles, and its surface and in-depth temperatures can be estimated using the developed analysis code.

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Section: Thermochemical Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Thermochemical Performance of a Lightweight Charring Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic

Okuyama

Kato

Ohya

2013

Trans. Japan Soc. Aero. S Sci.

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“…To remain within project mass limits, a new lightweight heatshield material Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) was utilized [3]. Reference [4] provides an overview of the Stardust capsule and its design. …”

Section: Capsule Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entry, Descent, and Landing Operations Analysis for the Stardust Entry Capsule

Desai

Lyons

Tooley

et al. 2008

Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

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On the morning of January 15, 2006, the Stardust capsule successfully landed at the Utah Test and Training range in northwest Utah returning cometary samples from the comet Wild-2. An overview of the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) trajectory analysis that was performed for targeting during the mission operations phase upon final approach to Earth is described. The final orbit determination solution produced an inertial entry flight-path angle of -8.21 deg (the desired nominal value) with a 3-σ uncertainty of ±0.0017 deg (2% of the requirement). The navigation and EDL operations effort accurately delivered the entry capsule to the desired landing site. The final landing location was 8.1 km from the target, which was well within the allowable landing area. Overall, the Earth approach operation procedures worked well and there were no issues (logistically or performance based) that arose. As a result, the process of targeting a capsule from an interplanetary trajectory and accurately landing it on Earth was successfully demonstrated.

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“…The charring thermal protection material considered in this work is the phenolic impregnated carbon ablator (PICA) [10], which is a lowdensity ablator that was used as the heat-shield material of the Stardust sample return capsule [11]. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to describe the details of the formulation considered in the enhanced version of FIAT; and second, to perform parametric studies to understand how the pyrolysis gas momentum transfer affects PICA material in-depth thermal response with various gas chemistry models to guide the direction of future work.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Nonequilibrium Chemistry and Darcy—Forchheimer Pyrolysis Flow for Charring Ablator

Chen

Milos

2013

Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

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The fully implicit ablation and thermal response code simulates pyrolysis and ablation of thermal protection materials and systems. The governing equations, which include energy conservation, a three-component decomposition model, and a surface energy balance, are solved with a moving grid. This work describes new modeling capabilities that are added to a special version of code. These capabilities include a time-dependent pyrolysis gas flow momentum equation with Darcy-Forchheimer terms and pyrolysis gas species conservation equations with finiterate homogeneous chemical reactions. The total energy conservation equation is also enhanced for consistency with these new additions. Two groups of parametric studies of the phenolic impregnated carbon ablator are performed. In the first group, an Orion flight environment for a proposed lunar-return trajectory is considered. In the second group, various test conditions for arcjet models are examined. The central focus of these parametric studies is to understand the effect of pyrolysis gas momentum transfer on material in-depth thermal responses with finite-rate, equilibrium, or frozen homogeneous gas chemistry. Results indicate that the presence of chemical nonequilibrium pyrolysis gas flow does not significantly alter the in-depth thermal response performance predicted using the chemical equilibrium gas model.

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Stardust Sample Return Capsule Design Experience

Cited by 60 publications

References 4 publications

Thermochemical Performance of a Lightweight Charring Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic

Thermochemical Performance of a Lightweight Charring Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic

Entry, Descent, and Landing Operations Analysis for the Stardust Entry Capsule

Effects of Nonequilibrium Chemistry and Darcy—Forchheimer Pyrolysis Flow for Charring Ablator

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