Overview of Research for Prediction of Aerodynamic Heating Environment During a Super-Orbital Reentry Flight of MUSES-C Reentry Capsule

The aerodynamic heating environment with ablation injection and the mass loss rate of the ablator under the superorbital re-entry condition of the MUSES-C sample return capsule are numerically studied by solving the viscous shockIayer (VSL) equations with the nonequilibrium chemistry of both the air and the ablation gas. The boundary conditions at the ablator surface are formulated by considering the surface oxidation and surface sublimation. Computational results on the variation of the surface mass loss rate with the wall temperature demonstrate that the diffusion-controlled regime and the sublimation regime are successfully described by the present model. The time history of the wall temperature at the stagnation point is estimated along the re-entry trajectory by assuming the energy balance at the surface. The streamwise distributions of the convective heating rate and the surface mass loss rate over the forebody of the capsule are calculated at the peak heating flight condition and their characteristics are clarifled. The effects of the pyrolysis gas of hydrocarbon species on the convective heating rate are investigated. The possibility of wall heating augmentation due to the turbulence induced by the ablation injection is also discussed.