Latest Research by ISRO

Plasma wind tunnel test on 1 : 28
scaled model of Human Spaceflight
Program (HSP) Crew Module (CM)
To demonstrate the performance
and to evaluate the erosion
characteristics of the Thermal
Protection System (TPS) material,
plasma wind tunnel test on the Crew
Module (CM) of HSP was carried out
at the 6 MW high enthalpy facility
at VSSC.
During re-entry at high velocities,
the compression of air around the
re-entry capsules results in extreme
thermal environment. At such high
temperature, which would be of the
order of 6000 K to 10000 K, the air
gets dissociated and ionised and gets
into a hyper reactive state. Light
weight, high performance Thermal
Protection System (TPS) is employed
to protect the vehicle in such
hostile environment. Plasma wind
tunnel facility is established to
simulate the re-entry thermal
regimes for the qualification of TPS.
In the PWT facility, an air stream is
converted into plasma at
temperature ranging from 8000 K to
10000 K. Scaled down models of the
TPS is exposed to the plasma stream
in a test chamber, where pressure
corresponding to the altitude also is
simulated. Thus the performance of
TPS, at the conditions prevailing at
the time of reentry, is evaluated.
--Saptarshi Ghosh