Managing risk in space: The space industry regulations 2021 and the new UK legal framework

Abstract

ArianeGroup as the industrial prime contractor of the next European launcher Ariane 6 has developed since 2012 a tool suite with the collaboration of CNES. This tool suite is dedicated to the prediction of fragmentation and survivability of space vehicle and especially of launchers (Finzi et al., 2017). It includes a detailed digital mock-up of the spacecraft, a combined 3D aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic code, a six degrees-of-freedom trajectory simulator which are coupled with commercial thermomechanical finite element software (SAMCEF®) and a thermodynamic code for the response of the propellant tanks (SITTARE). Once the fragmentation is detected thanks to engineering criteria, a list of debris is built and a statistical analysis of the survivability of all debris is computed with ADRYANS® (Bertorello et al., 2017), an object-orientated in-house code.The elaboration of the safety file is a critical phase in the development of a new launcher and must be cross-checked with independent software and methodologies (Dias, 2017). This is the responsibility of the CNES Space Safety Office. Even if each brick of the tool suite is validated through many years of experience in hypersonic flight vehicle development, confrontation of the global simulation results with experimental measurement are always of great interest. However, such flight experiences and or inboard measurements are very rare. The test case that is being studied since 2017 is the observed reentry of the Ariane 5 EPC of the V518 flight that launched the Rosetta probe (Lips et al., 2008).As the tool suite has evolved since the first version of the test case that was presented in Finzi et al. (2017), this paper aims at presenting updated results incorporating the influence of the materials enhanced database, propellant thermodynamic implementation and thermomechanical simulation of the stage for fragmentation analysis. The results include the estimation of the altitude of first fragmentation for the entire stage and are compared to previous studies (Finzi et al., 2017).