Ricerc@Sapienza

Since the beginning of the Space Age, the re-entry environment has been crucial both for manned and unmanned missions. Thus, along with high temperatures and plasma created during the re-entry phase, several issues must be considered in order to use new technologies and materials. Carbon/Carbon composites (C/C) are widely used for high temperatures applications, included Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) for re-entry; thus, the effects of the space environment have to be considered in order to design and produce a re-entry structure that can be used also for long duration missions.

Aim of the work is to describe a novel coating process based on the Al-Oxide ceramic varnish ‘Pyropaint’ applied on a spacecraft Thermal Protection System for re-entry application. The proposed treatment is intended to preserve the thermo-mechanical properties of a Carbon/Carbon substrate from the detrimental space environment conditions, such as LEO thermal cycles, outgassing due to ultra-high vacuum, and Atomic Oxygen / UV irradiation. In order to enhance the coating performance, the used varnish is enriched with Si-Oxide nanoparticles in different weight percentage.

Since the beginning of Space Age, the re-entry phase represents a crucial task for both manned and unmanned aerospace missions. Along with high temperatures and plasma created by the spacecraft/atmosphere dramatic interaction, several issues must be considered in order to use new technologies and materials for re-entry systems. In particular, the effects of space environment due to ultraviolet (UV) and atomic oxygen (AO) have to be taken into account, in order to design and realize aerospace structures useful also for long duration missions.