The Development of Thermal Protection Systems for Aerospace Vehicle Reentry: A Review

Thermal protection systems (TPS) are a crucial part of spacecraft that intend to reenter the atmosphere. They serve the purpose of preventing the heat of reentry from reaching the structure of the spacecraft, which may cause structural failure and destruction of the spacecraft, as well as loss of scientific equipment, data and possibly life if the mission is manned. This paper seeks to provide a review of current progress made in TPS materials and related technologies, with focus on ablative TPS, reusable TPS, criterion for the evaluation of TPS materials as well as methods both experimental and simulation for the testing of various TPS properties. This paper concludes upon current research that is being conducted in both ablative and reusable TPS categories as well as the direction that research on TPS may progress in the foreseeable future.