A new thermal protection material designed to prevent spacecraft from burning up during reentry into Earth's atmosphere performed extremely well during its first flight test. The ultra-high temperature ceramic, developed and tested by engineers at Ames, may some day revolutionize the engineering approach to the design of aerospace vehicles. Once out in space, the reentry vehicle was released, returning through Earth's atmosphere at blistering speed to a watery splashdown in the Kwajalein missile range of the Pacific Ocean. The sharp nose tip was instrumented with five heat-sensing devices designed to provide information on how well the new ceramic material stood up to the burning temperatures of reentry. Ames engineers report that data was collected right up to the moment of impact.
Initial results suggest that the experiment was a complete success.
The test flight of this new hafnium diboride silicon carbide composite was authorized only last December. Plans for additional flights currently are being discussed. The potential benefits to be derived from the use of sharp leading-edge designs for spacecraft and transatmospheric vehicles are tremendous. This means that spacecraft and transatmospheric vehicles can reenter Earth's atmosphere from any orbit and land at any location, unlike present blunt body vehicles. Finally, sharp leading edges minimize the number of free electrons that interfere with radio frequency transmissions and cause the communications blackout associated with the reentry of blunt body vehicles.