Conformal Ablative Thermal Protection System for Planetary and Human Exploration Missions: Overview of the Technology Maturation Efforts Funded by NASA's Game Changing Development Program

The Office of Chief Technologist (OCT), NASA has identified the need for research and technology development in part from NASA's Strategic Goal 3.3 of the NASA Strategic Plan to develop and demonstrate the critical technologies that will make NASA's exploration, science, and discovery missions more affordable and more capable. Furthermore, the Game Changing Development Program (GCDP) is a primary avenue to achieve the Agency's 2011 strategic goal to "Create the innovative new space technologies for our exploration, science, and economic future." In addition, recently released "NASA space Technology Roadmaps and Priorities," by the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences stresses the need for NASA to invest in the very near term in specific EDL technologies. The report points out the following challenges (Page 2-38 of the pre-publication copy released on February 1, 2012): Mass to Surface: Develop the ability to deliver more payload to the destination. NASA's future missions will require ever-greater mass delivery capability in order to place scientifically significant instrument packages on distant bodies of interest, to facilitate sample returns from bodies of interest, and to enable human exploration of planets such as Mars. As the maximum mass that can be delivered to an entry interface is fixed for a given launch system and trajectory design, the mass delivered to the surface will require reduction in spacecraft structural mass; more efficient, lighter thermal protection systems; more efficient lighter propulsion systems; and lighter, more efficient deceleration systems. Surface Access: Increase the ability to land at a variety of planetary locales and at a variety of times. Access to specific sites can be achieved via landing at a specific location (s) or transit from a single designated landing location, but it is currently infeasible to transit long distances and through extremely rugged terrain, requiring landing close to the site of interest. The entry environment is not always guaranteed with a direct entry, and improving the entry system's robustness to a variety of environmental conditions could aid in reaching more varied landing sites.

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) for Missions to Saturn and Beyond

This poster provides an overview of the requirements, design, development and testing of the 3D Woven TPS being developed under NASAs Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) project. Under this current program, NASA is working to develop a Thermal Protection System (TPS) capable of surviving entry into Saturn. A primary goal of the project is to build and test an Engineering Test Unit (ETU) to establish a Technical Readiness Level (TRL) of 6 for this technology by 2017

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) - Enabling Missions Beyond Heritage Carbon Phenolic

This poster provides an overview of the requirements, design, development and testing of the 3D Woven TPS being developed under NASA's Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) project. Under this current program, NASA is working to develop a Thermal Protection System (TPS) capable of surviving entry into Venus or Saturn. A primary goal of the project is to build and test an Engineering Test Unit (ETU) to establish a Technical Readiness Level (TRL) of 6 for this technology by 2017

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Enabling Missions Beyond Heritage Carbon Phenolic

Future NASA robotic missions utilizing an entry system into Venus and the outer planets, results in extremely high entry conditions that exceed the capabilities of state of the art low to mid density ablators such as PICA or AVCOAT. Previously, mission planners had to assume the use of fully dense carbon phenolic heatshields similar to what was flown on Pioneer Venus or Galileo. Carbon phenolic is a robust TPS material, however, its high density and relatively high thermal conductivity constrain mission planners to steep entries, with high heat fluxes and pressures and short entry durations. The high entry conditions pose challenges for certification in existing ground based test facilities and the longer-term sustainability of CP will continue to pose challenges. NASA has decided to invest in new technology development rather than invest in reviving carbon phenolic. The HEEET project, funded by STMD is maturing a game changing Woven Thermal Protection System technology. HEEET is a capability development project and is not tied to a single mission or destination, therefore, it is challenging to complete ground testing needed to demonstrate a capability that is much broader than any single mission or destination would require. This presentation will status HEEET progress. Near term infusion target for HEEET is the upcoming New Frontiers (NF-4) class of competitively selected Science Mission Directorate (SMD) missions for which it is incentivized

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) TPS for Ice Giants Probe Missions

This poster provides an overview of the requirements, design, development and testing of the 3D Woven TPS being developed under NASAs Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) project. Under this current program, NASA is working to develop a Thermal Protection System (TPS) capable of surviving entry into Saturn. A primary goal of the project is to build and test an Engineering Test Unit (ETU) to establish a Technical Readiness Level (TRL) of 6 for this technology by 2018. Poster also discusses use of HEEET TPS for probe missions to the Ice Giants, Uranus and Neptune

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Enabling Missions Beyond Heritage Carbon Phenolic

This poster provides an overview of the requirements, design, development and testing of the 3D Woven TPS being developed under NASAs Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) project. Under this current program, NASA is working to develop a Thermal Protection System (TPS) capable of surviving entry into Venus or Saturn. A primary goal of the project is to build and test an Engineering Test Unit (ETU) to establish a Technical Readiness Level (TRL) of 6 for this technology by 2017

Conformal Ablative Thermal Protection System for Small and Large Scale Missions: Approaching TRL 6 for Planetary and Human Exploration Missions and TRL 9 for Small Probe Missions

In 2011, NASAs Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) funded an effort to develop an ablative thermal protection system (TPS) material that would have improved properties when compared to Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) and AVCOAT. Their goal was a conformal material, processed with a flexible reinforcement that would result in similar or better thermal characteristics and higher strain-to-failure characteristics that would allow for easier integration on flight aeroshells than then-current rigid ablative TPS materials. In 2012, NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) began funding the maturation of the best formulation of the game changing conformal ablator, C-PICA. Progress has been reported at IPPW over the past three years, describing C-PICA with a density and recession rates similar to PICA, but with a higher strain-to-failure which allows for direct bonding and no gap fillers, and even more important, with thermal characteristics resulting in half the temperature rise of PICA. Overall, C-PICA should be able to replace PICA with a thinner, lighter weight, less complicated design. These characteristics should be particularly attractive for use as backshell TPS on high energy planetary entry vehicles. At the end of this year, the material should be ready for missions to consider including in their design, in fact, NASAs Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is considering incentivizing the use of C-PICA in the next Discovery Proposal call. This year both scale up of the material to large (1-m) sized pieces and the design and build of small probe heatshields for flight tests will be completed. NASA, with an industry partner, will build a 1-m long manufacturing demonstration unit (MDU) with a shape based on a mid LD lifting body. In addition, in an effort to fly as you test and test as you fly, NASA, with a second industry partner, will build a small probe to test in the Interactive Heating Facility (IHF) arc jet and, using nearly the same design, build the aeroshell and TPS, with instrumentation, for a small probe flight test article, due to fly in 2017. At the end of the year, the C-PICA will be at TRL 5+, and with the flight data in 2017, it will be at TRL 9 for missions needs with C-PICA at a small scale (12 diameter). The scale-up and small probe efforts will be de-scribed in this presentation

Conformal Ablative Thermal Protection System for Planetary and Human Exploration Missions:An Overview of the Technology Maturation Effort

The Office of Chief Technologist, NASA identified the need for research and technology development in part from NASAs Strategic Goal 3.3 of the NASA Strategic Plan to develop and demonstrate the critical technologies that will make NASAs exploration, science, and discovery missions more affordable and more capable. Furthermore, the Game Changing Development Program is a primary avenue to achieve the Agencys 2011 strategic goal to Create the innovative new space technologies for our exploration, science, and economic future. The National Research Council (NRC) Space Technology Roadmaps and Priorities report highlights six challenges and they are: Mass to Surface, Surface Access, Precision Landing, Surface Hazard Detection and Avoidance, Safety and Mission Assurance, and Affordability. In order for NASA to meet these challenges, the report recommends immediate focus on Rigid and Flexible Thermal Protection Systems. Rigid TPS systems such as Avcoat or SLA are honeycomb based and PICA is in the form of tiles. The honeycomb systems are manufactured using techniques that require filling of each (38 cell) by hand, and in a limited amount of time all of the cells must be filled and the heatshield must be cured. The tile systems such as PICA pose a different challenge as the low strain-to-failure and manufacturing size limitations require large number of small tiles with gap-fillers between the tiles. Recent investments in flexible ablative systems have given rise to the potential for conformal ablative TPS. A conformal TPS over a rigid aeroshell has the potential to solve a number of challenges faced by traditional rigid TPS materials. The high strain-to-failure nature of the conformal ablative materials will allow integration of the TPS with the underlying aeroshell structure much easier and enable monolithic-like configuration and larger segments (or parts) to be used. By reducing the overall part count, the cost of installation (based on cost comparisons between blanket and tile materials on shuttle) should be significantly reduced. The conformal ablator design will include a simplified design of seams between gore panels, which should eliminate the need for gap filler design, and should accommodate a wider range of allowable carrier structure imperfections when compared to a rigid material such as PICA.The Conformal TPS development project leverages the past investments made by earlier projects with a goal to develop and deliver a TRL 5 conformal TPS capable of 250 Wcm2 for missions such as MSL or COTS missions. The capabilities goal for the conformal TPS is similar to an MSL design reference mission (250 Wcm2) with matching pressures and shear environments. Both conformal and flexible carbon-felt based materials were successfully tested in stagnation aerothermal environments above 500 Wcm2 under earlier programs. Results on a myriad of materials developed during FY11 were used to determine which materials to start with in FY12. In FY12, the conformal TPS element focused on establishing materials requirements based on MSL-type and COTS Low Earth orbit (LEO) conditions (q 250 Wcm2) to develop and deliver a Conformal Ablative TPS. In FY13, development and refining metrics for mission utilization of conformal ablator technology along with assessment for potential mission stakeholders will be carried out

Overview of Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET)

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Environmental effects of ozone depletion, UV radiation and interactions with climate change : UNEP Environmental Effects Assessment Panel, update 2017

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