Thermal Protection System to Enable Ice Giant Aerocapture Mission for Delivering both an Orbiter and an in situ Probe.
Whitepaper #400 submitted to the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032. Topics: giant planets systems; technology development
by Ethiraj Venkatapathy, Dinesh Prabhu, Gary Allen, and Matt Gasch
Published onMar 18, 2021
Thermal Protection System to Enable Ice Giant Aerocapture Mission for Delivering both an Orbiter and an in situ Probe.
Use of aerocapture at Ice Giants can significantly reduce the trip time and allow for greater scientific payload. One key technology required is TPS. We show there are many capable TPS and conformal TPS is mass efficient. We advocate for technology maturation from TRL 4+ to TRL 6 to benefit Ice Giant missions.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)
