TRANSACTIONS OF THE JAPAN SOCIETY FOR AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE SCIENCES, AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY JAPAN
Online ISSN : 1884-0485
ISSN-L : 1884-0485
e) Fluid Dynamics and Aerothermodynamics
High-Speed Compact Entry Capsule Enhanced by Lightweight Ablator and Crushable Structure
Tetsuya YAMADAToshio OGASAWARAKoichi KITAZONOHideyuki TANNO
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2016 Volume 14 Issue ists30 Pages Pe_33-Pe_40

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Abstract

Recently, target bodies of the solar exploration extended to distant heavenly bodies beyond the Mars, and even to more distant ones. Because the overall mission duration tends to be longer and longer in such high-energy missions, reliability requirements for the subsystems become severer. In case of sample return missions from the distant asteroids, the earth entry velocity of the sample return capsule is often estimated to exceed 14 km/s, or reach to 15 km/s, and the overall mission duration also exceeds 10 years, or approaches to 20 years in some cases such as sample return from distant comets. The high-speed compact entry capsule is one of the key technologies to accomplish such challenging missions. Two of the important issues concerned with the high-speed entry capsules are severe thermal protection in the high-speed entry and secure functional reliability of the overall slow-descending sub-systems at the very final phase of the mission. The present study shows a conceptual design of the high-speed compact entry capsule enhanced by state-of-the-art technologies of the lightweight ablator and the crushable structure. The lightweight thermal protection ablator is very advantageous for reducing the ballistic coefficient and the heatflux during reentry. Three-dimensionally woven lightweight ablator has exhibited excellent recession characteristics under the 12 MW/m2 arc-heating tests. The crushable structure realizes chuteless landing by absorbing landing shock energy and protects the instrument modules against the landing shock within a prescribed deceleration level. The chuteless landing is advantageous for secure decent system in that ignition electronics, parachutetriggering sensors, and triggering-control logic circuits etc. are no longer required.

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© 2016 The Japan Society for Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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