Discussion on Lightning Protection Design of Aerospace Transportation System

Abstract

Since the 1969 Apollo 12 lightning strike incident, aerospace engineers have gradually realized of the importance of lightning protection for aerospace transportation system. Since then, lightning protection technology has been greatly developed. Until now, the United Stated and Russia both establish their own lightning protection design program and specifications. In the recent the Soyuz lightning strike incident, people can obviously find that the lightning current was thoroughly flowed away the whole launch vehicle when lightning strike to the launch vehicle, but the Soyuz stand the strong lightning current and lightning environment without any damage or hardware degrade, and successfully complete the launch mission, which indicated that the Soyuz takes lightning protection design on its design process and it achieves a high lightning protection performance. This paper takes launch vehicle as the discussion object, tracks some typical lightning strike incidents, and discusses the lightning protection design for aerospace transportation system both in the United State and Russia, which may provide enlightenment and ideas for lightning protection design of China's aerospace transportation system.