Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) is a low-density ablator that has been used as the planetary entry heatshield for several NASA missions since the late 90’s. Its low density and efficient performance characteristics have proven effective for use from Discovery to Flag-ship class missions, from Sample Return missions such as Stardust, OSIRIS-REx to large Mars Lander missions such as MSL and Mars 2020. Continued development of a more mass efficient and compliant versions of PICA that use a carbon felt as the substrate will be presented. The felt based versions of PICA known as Conformal PICA (C-PICA) and Soft PICA (S-PICA), are very comparable in terms of peak heat-flux capabilities compared to standard PICA. The lower density and of C-PICA and S-PICA further show a much higher thermal protection efficiency and hence more mass savings. The compliant nature of these materials allows for use on a wide variety of substrates and therefore makes it very attractive for commercial low earth orbit missions as well as NASA’s aerocapture missions to Ice Giants. NASA is currently working with several commercial partners (Varda and Inversion Space) to Technology Transfer C/S-PICA variants for commercial LEO missions. Thermal, mechanical, and representative environment arc-jet tests have been conducted comparing the performance of Conformal and Soft-PICA materials.


    Zugriff

    Zugriff über TIB

    Verfügbarkeit in meiner Bibliothek prüfen


    Exportieren, teilen und zitieren



    Titel :

    Development of Advanced Conformal and Soft Pica for Future Nasa Missions and Commercial Space



    Kongress:

    National Space and Missile Materials Symposium 2023 ; 2023 ; Tucson, AZ, US


    Medientyp :

    Sonstige


    Format :

    Keine Angabe


    Sprache :

    Englisch




    Development of Lyocell Based Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA-D) for Future NASA Missions

    M. M. Stackpoole / M. J. Gasch / E. Venkatapathy et al. | NTIS | 2019



    Development of Lyocell Based Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA-D) for Future NASA Missions

    Stackpoole, Margaret Mairead / Gasch, Matthew J. / Venkatapathy, Ethiraj et al. | NTRS | 2019



    Sustaining PICA for Future NASA Robotic Science Missions Including NF-4 and Discovery

    Stackpoole, Mairead / Venkatapathy, Ethiraj / Violette, Steve | NTRS | 2018