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Thermal Protection Materials and

Systems: Past and Future
Sylvia M. Johnson
NASA Ames Research Center
40th International Conference and Exposition
on Advanced Ceramics and Composites
Daytona Beach
January 25, 2015
Apollo Heatshield: After Entry!

Material: AVCOAT

Atmospheric entry is tough on materials! 2

 Outline

• Introduction to Thermal Protection Systems (TPS)

• Reusable TPS
- Shuttle materials
- Current reusable material
• UHTCs
• Ablative TPS
- Recent materials
- Materials selection
- Orion TPS
• Challenges for the future
New materials/concepts

3
 Introduction to TPS for NASA

• NASA uses TPS for entry vehicles that carry people,

cargo, experiments, samples and/or instruments
- Entries usually involve descending into the atmosphere followed by
a trajectory that aims to burn off energy and result in a controlled
landing.
- Not usually ballistic entries
- Not long hypersonic operations in atmosphere.
- Entry to Earth, Mars, Venus, gas and ice giant planets

4
 TPS Development

• NASA Ames focuses on:

- Qualifying and certifying TPS for current missions
- Developing new TPS for upcoming missions
• Approaches to TPS development differ with risk —
crewed vs. robotic missions:
- Crewed
 Loss of life must be avoided
 What must be done to qualify and certify TPS?
- Robotic missions
 Can take more risk
 But scientific knowledge can be lost too
• Goal for all TPS is efficient and reliable performance
• Need to understand materials to enable design and use

5
 Entry Heating Parameters

• Reentry heating : 2 primary sources

- Convective heating from both the flow of hot gas past the surface of the
vehicle and catalytic chemical recombination reactions at the surface
- Radiation heating from the energetic shock layer in front of the vehicle
• Heating depends on reentry speed (V), vehicle effective radius (R), and
atmospheric density (ρ)


0.5

qconv V  
3 q rad  V 8  1.2 R 0.5
R
Convective Heating Shock Radiation Heating

• As reentry speed increases, both convective and R

radiation heating increase
- Radiation heating dominates at high speeds
• As vehicle radius increases,
convective heating decreases,
but radiation heating increases
V
6
 Thermal Protection Systems

• Protect vehicle structure and contents (people and things) from the heat of
entry through an atmosphere
• Rely on material’s response to environment
• Response depends on
- Material properties
- Configuration of the system
- Specific conditions (heat flux, pressure, flow)
• Physical Forms: rigid, conformable, flexible

One size does not fit all!

Different TPS for different vehicles, location on vehicles,
and mission conditions
Goal of all TPS is reliable and
efficient performance
Specifically addresses challenges of mass reduction and
reliability
7
Rigid, Conformable and Flexible TPS
Physical Forms of TPS
• Rigid – fabricated in a rigid form and usually
applied in a tiled configuration to a rigid
substructure
• Conformable – fabricated in a flexible form and
shaped to a rigid substructure; final form may
be rigid or compliant
• Flexible – fabricated and used in a flexible form,
where flexibility is an essential component of
the heatshield, e.g., deployable systems,
stowable systems
• Woven – can be any of the above

8
Reusable vs. Ablative TPS

9
 Insulative/Reusable TPS

Energy management through storage and re-radiation — material unchanged

When exposed to atmospheric free stream

entry heating conditions, boundary layer

radiation or shock layer
surface material will heat up flux in convective
flux
and reject heat in the following
ways: radiation
flux out
• Re-radiation from the high emissivity
coating
surface and internal storage conduction
flux
during high heating low conductivity
condition insulation TPS

• Re-radiation and convective

cooling under post-flight
conditions backup or
structure material

10
 Ames-Developed Thermal Protection Materials
Adopted on Shuttle

AIM-22 Tile

AFRSI Blanket
TUFI/AETB Tile

FRCI-12 Tile

RCG Coating Gap Fillers

11
 Reusable TPS: Tiles
• Effort started in 1970’s by ARC to provide NASA with TPS materials and
processing expertise
• Insulation materials used to protect the aluminum sub-structure of the
shuttle.
• High purity silica, aluminoborosilicate, and alumina fibers
• LI-900, FRCI-12, AETB-8
• Open porous structure
• Used on over 100 shuttle missions
Starting materials for tiles

10mm 100 mm
10mm
Silica fibers
Alumina fibers 10mm AETB (35% Al2O3) Tile
Nextel® fibers
Tiles are heterogeneous with regions of low density
and clumps of fibers with some non-fibrous inclusions 12
 Reusable TPS: Tiles and Coatings

• Silica-based fibers
• Mostly empty space-
>90%porosity

100 mm
Density: 0.14 to 0.19 g/cm3 “Space Shuttle Tile”

RCG Coating TUFI Coating

400 mm
400 mm

• RCG (Reaction Cured Glass) is a thin • TUFI (Toughened Unipiece Fibrous

dense high emittance glass coating on the insulation) coatings penetrate into the sample
surface of shuttle tiles • Porous but much more impact resistant
• Poor impact resistance system 13
 Shuttle Flight Testing of TUFI Tiles in Base
Heatshield

RCG Hybrid
Silica-based Tile Overcoat

Impregnated surface treatment

TUFI tiles used on base heatshield of

Shuttle to protect against damage
from debris incurred during liftoff

TUFI/AETB-8 Tiles Undamaged After

Three Flights
14
 TUFROC TPS
(Toughened Unipiece Fibrous Reusable Oxidation Resistant Ceramic)

• Developed TUFROC for X-37 application

• Advanced TUFROC developed recently
• Transferred technology to Boeing and others
• System parameters:
- Lightweight (similar to LI-2200)
- Dimensionally stable at surface temperatures up to1922 K
- High total hemispherical emittance (0.9)
- Low catalytic efficiency
- In-depth thermal response is similar to single piece Shuttle-type fibrous insulation

Graded Surface Treatment

Cap

ROCCI Control surface

Base Insulator

X-37 Reentry Vehicle

Fibrous Insulation

Wing leading15edge
Schematic of TUFROC TPS Nose cap
 TUFROC
Standard TUFROC
RE-ENTRY
2 Piece Approach
H E A T I N G
Re-radiate enough heat so that conduction through
- Cap is within temp limits of the insulating Base
- Base is within temp limits of the Vehicle Max re-radiation ∝ ε T4
Temp
ROCCI Carbonaceous Cap (°F)
3000
- Silicon-oxycarbide phase slows oxidation ROCCI Cap
- HETC, treatment near surface slows maintains outer mold line
oxidation and keeps emissivity high (ε ~ 0.9) max temp: 3000 °F
- Coated with borosilicate reaction cured 2500
heat conduction
glass ( RCG ) for oxidation resistance

AETB Silica Insulating Base AETB Insulating Base

- Solved thermo-structural issues by adding boron significantly reduces heat
oxide (B2O3) and alumino-borosilicate fibers, 400 conducted to the vehicle
max temp: 2600 °F
which also improved mechanical strength
- Increased temp capability to 2500+ °F by 200
VEHICLE STRUCTURE
adding alumina (Al2O3) fiber
16
 TUFROC on X-37
Flight Proven Standard TUFROC

TUFROC spans USAF X-37b wing leading edge

- NASA developed Standard TUFROC and
transferred it to X-37b Prime - Boeing
- Enabling technology for critical USAF Program
- 3 successful missions, 4th mission in progress
TUFROC TUFROC
Reusability of Standard TUFROC? ⇒ Advanced

12/8/2010
X-37b Preparing for 1st launch, Apr 2010 X-37b after 224 days (90 million miles) in orbit, Dec 2010
Sharp Leading Edge Energy Balance

• Insulators and UHTCs manage energy in different

ways:
- Insulators store energy until it can be eliminated in the same
way as it entered
- UHTCs conduct energy through the material and reradiate it
through cooler surfaces
Sharp Nose

UHTC
High
Thermal Leading Edges
Conductivity
Sharp Nose

Dean Kontinos, Ken Gee and Dinesh Prabhu. “Temperature Constraints at the Sharp Leading Edge of a
Crew Transfer Vehicle.” AIAA 2001-2886 35th AIAA Thermophysics Conference, 11-14 June 2001,
18
Anaheim CA
Ultra High Temperature Ceramics (UHTCs) : A
Family of Materials

• Borides, carbides and nitrides of

transition elements such as hafnium,
zirconium, tantalum and titanium
• Some of highest known melting
points
• High hardness, good wear
resistance, good mechanical strength
• Good chemical and thermal stability Teledyne Scientific
under certain conditions
- High thermal conductivity
- Good thermal shock resistance
• The microstructure of UHTCs clearly
shows their composite nature
- Distribution of material phases
- Flaw size and distribution

19
Ultra High Temperature Ceramics (UHTCs) : A
Family of Materials

• Borides, carbides and nitrides of

transition elements such as hafnium,
zirconium, tantalum and titanium
• Some of highest known melting
points
• High hardness, good wear
resistance, good mechanical strength
• Good chemical and thermal stability
under certain conditions Hf-B Phase Diagram

- High thermal conductivity

- Good thermal shock resistance
• Considerable effort in many
institutions to improve properties and
processing of UHTCs

20
 Ablative TPS

Energy management through material consumption

When exposed to
atmospheric entry heating
conditions, material will
pyrolyze (char), and reject
heat in the following ways:
• Endothermic decomposition
of polymer
• Blowing of ablation
products into the boundary
layer reduces convective
heating
• Formation of char layer and
re-radiation

21
 Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA)

Processing Detail

Carbon Fiberform™

Resin Impregnation
Phenolic Resin

Fiberform™ before impregnation PICA has low density (~0.27g/cm3)

and is an efficient ablator at high
heat fluxes

PICA: Fiberform™ PICA Arc Jet Drying Cycle

with phenolic resin Model 22
 PICA Applications

PICA was the enabling TPS PICA was the primary heatshield
material for the Stardust for Mars Science Lab (MSL) and
mission where it was used as a variant is used in SpaceX’s
a single piece heatshield Dragon cargo vehicle in a tiled
configuration

Stardust sample return capsule post flight with PICA

as the forebody TPS. (0.8m diameter) MSL Heat Shield (4.5m diameter)
23
 Selection of Appropriate Material

• Historical approach:
- Use heritage materials: “It’s worked before…”
- Risk-reduction strategy
- Limited number of flight-qualified ablative materials
- Different vehicle configurations and reentry conditions (need to
qualify materials in relevant environments)
• As missions become more demanding, we need higher
capability materials — necessary to have a robust
research and development program
• Reusable and ablative materials are both needed
• Must test materials in relevant environments
• Provide path for insertion/use of new materials

24
 Need for Arc Jet Testing

• Arc jet testing is the best ground-

based method of evaluating a
material’s oxidation/ablation response
in re-entry environments
• Oxidation/ablation behavior on heating
in static or flowing air at ambient
pressures is likely to be significantly
different than in a re-entry
environment.
- O2 and N2 may be dissociated
 Catalycity of the material
 Recombination of O and N atoms
adds to surface heating
- Stagnation pressures may be <1 atm.

25
 Orion

• The Orion spacecraft will take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit
(LEO) to deep space.
- emergency abort capability,
- sustain the crew
- provide safe re-entry from deep space.
• Exploration Flight Test-1, an uncrewed mission flew in 2014.
- Orion travel farther into space than any spacecraft had gone in more than 40 years.
- EFT-1 data used to influence design decisions, validate existing computer models and
innovative new approaches to space systems development, as well as reduce overall
mission risks and costs.

• What TPS was used?

- Decision was made to use Avcoat, material first used on Apollo

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/545955main_mp 26
cvstack_full.jpg
 Orion TPS: AVCOAT

• Avcoat was used on the Apollo

vehicles: “heritage” material
• Consists of a honeycomb filled with
an ablative mixture
• Complex material requiring hand
assembly

• Next Orion flight will use a variant

of Avcoat without the honeycomb

Avcoat arc jet models: pre

and post test
27
 Destinations and Challenges

• Saturn and Venus: robotic missions

- Very extreme environments, especially Venus atmosphere
- Saturn: very large, very high heating on entry
• Mars: robotic and crewed mission
- Crew requires large amount of cargo
- Crew to and from surface separately

28
 TPS Selection
• Entry into outer planets/ Venus Planet Peak Heat Pressure Heat Load
Mission Flux Range Range
- Large aeroshells for deceleration Studies Range (atm) (kJ/cm2)
• Entry into Mars (W/cm2)
- Sky crane approach of MSL/Curiosity Venus1 2400 - 4-9 11 - 12
not feasible for loads>1.5mt to Mars 4900
- Balloons / parachutes not very effective Saturn2 1900 - 2-9 80 - 272
- Need large aeroshell 7700
• High speed entry into Earth’s 1. Prabhu, D.K., et. al.; IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, March 2-9, 2013
2. Allen, G. A. and Prabhu, D. K.; private communication
atmosphere
- Direct trip/ entry: entry speed> 13.5km/s
- Orion vehicle: need more capable TPS
- Inspiration Mars proposed very small
reentry vehicle: lower heat flux, current
TPS
• Scenarios have differing degrees of
risk to humans—length of time in
space, entry speeds, g forces,
hazard of changing vehicles
29
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/gallery/index.html?id=341169
 Future Missions: TPS Availability and “Gap”
Historical TPS Mass Fraction
by Heat Flux and Pressure

Carbon Phenolic

• Carbon phenolic
Outer planet and
- high heat fluxes sample return
• PICA/other ablators missions

- < ~ 2,000 W/cm2 PICA

SLA

No efficient TPS for the gap from ~1000W/cm2 to 10,000W/cm2

30
 3D Woven TPS

An approach to the design and manufacturing of ablative TPS by the

combination of weaving precise placement of fibers in an optimized
3D woven manner and then resin transfer molding when needed
• Design TPS for a specific mission
• Tailor material composition by weaving together different
types of fibers and by exact placement using computer
controlled, automated, 3-D weaving technology
• One-step process for making a mid-density dry woven
TPS
• Ability to infiltrate woven preforms with polymeric resins
for highest density TPS to meet more demanding thermal
requirements

Blended Yarn Resin infused 31

 4.00
Potential Mass Savings!
3.50
HEEET: V=10.8 km/s
4.00
HEEET: V=11.6 km/s
3.00
3.50
Carbon Phenolic: V=10.8 km/s

3.00
2.50
Carbon Phenolic: V=11.6 km/s
Areal Mass, g/cm2

2.50
Areal Mass, g/cm2

2.00

2.00

1.50
1.50 4.00

1.00
1.00 Acreage
3.50
HEEET: V=10.8 km/s
Gap
filler
0.50
0.50
HEEET: V=11.6 km/s
3.00
0.00
Carbon Phenolic: V=10.8 km/s
-35 -30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0
0.00 Entry Angle,
2.50 degree
-35 -30 -25 -20 Carbon
-15 Phenolic: V=11.6
-10 km/s -5 0
Areal Mass, g/cm2

• Improved mass efficiency

Entry Angle, o

2.00
of woven TPS material for Venus entry
- More mass for instrumentation
- Lower G loads 1.50
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 Deployable Heat Shield Concept

Deployment system

Carbon Fabric Aeroshell

Rigid Nose
Test model of deployable system
Current concepts for Venus
TPS: exploration
• 6 layers of carbon fiber weave (3D weave) Potential for expansion to Mars entry
• Has to withstand aerodynamic and (~16m diameter)
aerothermal loads. Large sizes will place significant
• Medium Heat Rate Capability (250 W/cm2) demands on structure and
mechanisms
33
 Inflatable Heatshield Concept
Inflatable structure with a flexible TPS

Inflatable aeroshell covered in TPS TPS

Outer heat resistant layer
High Energy Atmospheric Reentry Test (HEART) Middle insulating layer
Current testing in few meter diameter range. Inner non-permeable layer
16-20m required for Mars entry and ~20t load. Example: SiC/carbon felt
Issue: long term leakage. layers impregnated with
pyrogel 34
 Materials for High Speed Earth Entry
• Capability is related to the density of the materials
- Using low density materials at very high heat fluxes leads to rapid recession
• PICA/advanced PICA—capable up to 11km/sec (lunar return), probably more
capable but not fully tested
- Stardust (<1m) came in at 12.6m/s (1200W/cm2)
- Testing up to 2000W/cm2 in progress
• Woven TPS: tested up to 8000W/cm2
• Conformable PICA capable maybe up to 1000W/cm2, but recession/shear need to
be better characterized
• Need new materials and concepts that allow for
- Tailored materials—different properties through thickness to reduce mass and
improve performance
- Handle radiative entry heating as well as convective heating:surface treatments to
reflect radiation
- Anti-catalytic coatings that prevents release of heat at the surface

Key is to balance design and materials to make efficient and

reliable TPS for space exploration. 35
 TPS Solutions Availability

• Potentially available for Venus and Saturn (3D woven TPS,

deployable aeroshells)
• Potentially available for landing cargo on Mars
- Deployable or inflatable concepts for heavy loads
• Current materials probably satisfactory for landing small
human craft on Mars
- PICA, existing ablators
- Could also use deployable or inflatable concepts
• Returning people or samples to earth
- Current materials not sufficient for high speed (>~13.5km/s)
entry of Orion type vehicle
- Can design mission to involve transfer or use of smaller
vehicles but involves risk and complexity

36
 Summary

• Select thermal protection material based on entry

conditions
- Ablative materials were used in early vehicles
- Insulative materials were used for Shuttle as it was a reusable
system
- Ablative materials used in current systems for heatshield
- Insulators still used on certain vehicles (X37b) an on back shell of
capsules such as Orion where heat flux is lower.
• Outer planets and high speed earth entry require more
capable materials
- 3d woven materials for heat shields
- Flexible and deployable materials
• On-going development of materials for NASA missions

37
 Remaining TPS Needs

• Improve existing concepts and develop

higher capability materials
• Capability to test in relevant environments
and provide data for modeling
• Characterize materials to understand
behavior
• Develop computational materials
approaches to design, processing and
lifetime prediction

38
 Acknowledgements

• Thomas Squire (NASA-ARC)

• Joseph Conley (NASA-ARC)
• Mairead Stackpoole (NASA-ARC)
• Alan Cassell (NASA-ARC)
• All the people who have worked on these technologies
over many years

39
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration

Ames Research Center

Entry Systems and Technology Division
 Optimized LI-900/TUFI
System Schematic

Toughened Surface Treatment

RCG Hybrid
LI-900 Tile
Overcoat

This system reduces the weight of TUFI/LI-900 to an acceptable level by

limiting the area where the surface treatment is applied while retaining the
improved damage resistance of the TUFI system.

41
X-37B after Landing

TUROC is on Leading Edges

42