Abstract
One of the most difficult tasks with which NASA has had to deal is how its space systems operate while transiting the atmosphere as they return to Earth. Coming home after a flight into space is a fundamental challenge, and research in aerodynamics, thermodynamics, thermal protection, simulation, guidance and control, stability, propulsion, and landing systems have proven critical to the success of these efforts from the beginning of the space age. Ablative heat shields and parachutes served well the task of delivering spacecraft back to Earth at their end of their missions during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, and they have been used intermittently thereafter in other space projects. In the 1970s, however, NASA changed its methodology for reentry and recovery from space with the reusable Space Shuttle and its ceramic tile thermal protection system (TPS). While the ablative heat shields and parachute systems of early space missions were tailored to a wide array of scenarios and reengineered for each new flight regime, since the Viking lander program to Mars NASA ceased efforts to develop new reentry and recovery systems in favor of reusable systems supporting the Space Shuttle.
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Notes
Basic histories of rocketry include Roger D. Launius and Dennis R. Jenkins, eds., To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S Launch Vehicles (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002); David Baker, The Rocket: The History and Development of Rocket and Missile Technology (New York: Crown Books, 1978); Frank H. Winter, Rockets into Space (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990); Wernher von Braun, Frederick I. Ordway III, and Dave Dooling, History of Rocketry and Space Travel (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1986 ed.); Eugene M. Emme, ed., The History of Rocket Technology: Essays on Research, Development, and Utility (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1964); G. Harry Stine, Halfway to Anywhere: Achieving America’s Destiny in Space (New York: M. Evans and Co., 1996).
Representative technical studies of the challenge of reentry and recovery include Patrick Gallais, Atmospheric Reentry Vehicle Mechanics (New York: Springer, 2007); Ashish Tewari, Atmospheric and Space Flight Dynamics: Modeling and Simulation with MATLAB® and Simulink® (Boston: Birkhäuser Boston, 2009); Frank J. Regan, Dynamics of Atmospheric Reentry (Reston, VA: American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1993); Wilber L. Hankey, Reentry Aerodynamics (Reston, VA: American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1988); John David Anderson, Hypersonic and High Temperature Gas Dynamics (Reston, VA: American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2006).
See Roger D. Launius and Dennis R. Jenkins, Coming Home: Reentry and Recovery From Space, forthcoming from NASA, 2012.
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Launius, R.D. (2013). Returning Scientific Data to Earth: The Parallel but Unequal Careers of Genesis and Stardust and the Problem of Sample Return to Earth. In: Launius, R.D. (eds) Exploring the Solar System. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137273178_8
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