IXV adaptation to vehicle reconfiguration

Abstract

In the complex domain of the space technologies and among the different applications available in Europe, the possibility to launch spacecrafts, establish permanent outpost on orbit and explore the universe with automated satellites to meet various scientific aspects has been extensively investigated and the related technologies are now well mastered. At the same time re-entry technologies, due to the overall increased level of complexity, have been less investigated and re-entering a vehicle from orbit is still a challenge. Given the challenges and opportunities associated to the re-entry domain, a great interest has been placed since several years in Europe in the development of re-entry technologies. These in fact will complement the actual portfolio of European space applications allowing the full exploitation of a wide range of applications like planetary exploration, sample return, crew and cargo transportation, future launchers and space planes. Among the different achievements obtained in this field it is well worth recalling the experience of the Atmospheric Re-entry Vehicle flight in 1998 and a certain number of important investments performed at Agency and national levels like Hermes, MSTP, Festip, X-38, FLPP, TRP, GSTP, HSTS, AREV, Pre-X. IXV (Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle) builds on these past experiences and studies and is conceived to be the next technological step forward with respect to ARD. The IXV (see Figure 1 below) is an atmospheric re-entry demonstrator that, launched by the ESA/Vega from Kourou, will perform a suborbital flight and will re-enter in the atmosphere experiencing the typical Low Earth Orbit re-entry thermal loads while performing a certain number of identified experiments related to thermal protection system, aerodynamics, aerothermodynamics and GNC and validating the engineering approach, the margin policy and tools used to design and develop the demonstrator and to plan the mission. The IXV project Phase-A/B1 study has been started beginning of 2005 under ESA FLPP Period-1 Phase-1&2 contracts, by defining the IXV mission objectives and maturing the IXV design. Phase B2 of the program was completed with System PDR at beginning of 2009 with NGL (Next Generation Launcher) Prime Spa as prime contractor. After the completion of the PDR, IXV design has been revisited since June 2009 when a new project consortium was redefined. As a consequence a new design approach initiated with severe changes in the inherited configuration for what regards both the architecture of the vehicle sub-systems and the components being selected to sustain a new operative scenario. The refinement of the thermal control architecture aimed to minimize cost and schedule impacts is matter of this presentation.