Subsonic and transonic pressure distributions around a bluff afterbody in the wake of a 120 deg cone for various separation distances

A wind-tunnel investigation was conducted at free-stream Mach numbers from 0.20 to 1.00 and Reynolds numbers, based on maximum afterbody diameter, from 2.25 million to 6.90 million on solid models of an attached inflatable decelerator (AID) concept. Tests were conducted to obtain static and ram surface pressure distributions about the basic shapes and at various separation distances between the 120 deg conical forebody and the inflated afterbody shape. The resulting data were used to study the feasibility of extracting a payload from a conical forebody by means of an AID