The thermal protection systems for the shuttle/Centaur would have had to provide fail-safe thermal protection during prelaunch, launch ascent, and on-orbit operations as well as during potential abort. The thermal protection systems selected used a helium-purged polyimide foam beneath three rediation shields for the liquid-hydrogen tank and radiation shields only for the liquid-oxygen tank (three shields on the tank sidewall and four on the aft bulkhead). A double-walled vacuum bulkhead separated the two tanks. The liquid-hydrogen tank had one 0.75-in-thick layer of foam on the forward bulkhead and two layers on the larger area sidewall. Full scale tests of the flight vehicle in a simulated shuttle cargo bay that was purged with gaseous nitrogen gave total prelaunch heating rates of 88,500 Btu/hr and 44,000 Btu/hr for the liquid-hydrogen and -oxygen tanks, respectively. Calorimeter tests on a representative sample of the liquid-hydrogen tank sidewall thermal protection system indicated that the measured unit heating rate would rapidly decrease from the prelaunch rate of approx 100 Btu/hr/sq ft to a desired rate of less than 1.3 Btu/hr/sq ft once on orbit.
Design, Development and Test of Shuttle/Centaur G-Prime Cryogenic Tankage Thermal Protection Systems
1987
42 pages
Report
No indication
English
Manned Spacecraft , Space Launch Vehicles & Support Equipment , Centaur launch vehicle , Cryogenic rocket propellants , Cryogenic storage , Space shuttle payloads , Thermal protection , Design analysis , Fail-safe systems , Flight tests , Flight vehicles , Foams , Fuel tanks , Liquid hydrogen , Liquid oxygen , Polyimides
Development of new superinsulation for cryogenic space tankage
Engineering Index Backfile | 1968
|