Abstract
The USERS REV capsule achieved reentry flight from the low earth orbit and was successfully recovered on the sea in May, 2003. This paper presents the post flight analysis of the recovered heatshield of REV capsule and summarizes the lessons learned. REV capsule, totally about 670kg, has combined shape of the nose hemisphere and the rear conical part, and its size is 1.5m in diameter and 2m in length. REV is thermally protected against the aerodynamic heating by the carbon phenolic ablator heatshield. The heatshield was designed to satisfy the conflicted requirement of the heat release in the orbit and the thermal protection during the reentry. The design philosophy has been validated by the present successful flight and recovery. The reentry orbit and the flight environment have been reproduced based on the flight data and skin-radar tracking data. The thermal behavior of the heatshield is discussed in relation to the flight environment and the attitude motion of the capsule.
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