Effects of nonequilibrium and surface catalysis on Shuttle heat transfer - A review

It is pointed out that the Space Shuttle Orbiter is a hypersonic glide reentry vehicle which spends much of its entry time at relatively tenuous altitudes in which chemical nonequilibrium predominates in the shock layer. On the windward side, dissociation nonequilibrium exists in the inviscid layer and recombination nonequilibrium exists in the boundary layer. The present investigation is concerned with an evaluation of various flowfield predictions, taking into account a comparison of equilibrium and nonequilibrium flowfields coupled with reacting axisymmetric analog boundary-layer solutions and the results of viscous-shock-layer solutions with flight temperature/heat-flux measurements near the windward centerline for the Shuttle flights STS-2, STS-3, and STS-5.