| Customer: ESA/ESTEC (2008 - 2010) | |
| The goal of this Project is to develop a new generation ablative material that may be used by the European Space Industry in the frame of future Sample Return missions with very high re-entry velocities, such as Mars Sample return mission. | |
The study is divided into a preliminary development phase, followed by a detailed development of the material, manufacturing of samples, breadboards and adequate testing in plasma wind tunnel facilities of IRS (D) and DLR-Cologne (D). The team also includes experts in the field of aerothermodynamics and computational fluid dynamics simulation, Fluid Gravity Engineering Ltd in the United Kingdom, a certified ESA test center for the characterization testing of the materials, Austrian Research Centers, and an R&D institute in Portugal, INEGI where the substrate structure will be manufactured.
HPS Portugal and HPS Germany are in charge of the project’s management, definition of requirements, selection of most promising candidates and planning and coordination of the test campaign and design of the final demonstrator.