Aerodynamic Heating Prediction of an Inflatable Reentry Vehicle in a Hypersonic Wind Tunnel

Aerodynamic heating around an inflatable reentry vehicle was investigated using hypersonic wind tunnel and numerical approach. The inflatable reentry vehicle is mainly composed of the capsule, membrane aeroshell (rigid in the wind tunnel), and inflatable torus. Basic configuration of the reentry vehicle (HWT-MAAC) is a scaled-down model of SMAAC, which was used in demonstration mission with JAXA / ISAS S-310-41 sounding rocket. Spherical cap of the SMAAC model was replaced by blunt top. Freestream condition of Mach number of 10, reservoir pressure of 2.5 MPa, and reservoir temperature of 950 K was used in the hypersonic wind tunnel test. Heat flux distribution on the surface and density gradient around the HWT-MAAC were measured by infrared thermography and Schliren photograph techniques, respectively. It was found that heat flux distribution widely varies according to angle of attack of the vehicle and a recirculation region near the membrane aeroshell section of the vehicle can appear at high angle of attack. Flow field was also numerically simulated with computational fluid dynamics approach. Analysis solver used here in was RG-FaSTAR, which is a version of JAXA fast aerodynamic routine (FaSTAR). Structures of shock layer and expansion region around HWT-MAAC was discussed through the analysis approach and the wind tunnel results