High-Enthalpy Testing of Thermal Protection Materials in the Plasmatron X for Titan Atmospheric Entry Mission

As part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, the Dragonfly mission aims to advance our search for the building blocks of life on Saturn’s moon, Titan. In 2034, the Dragonfly rotorcraft will fly through Titan’s dense nitrogen-based atmosphere to identify the chemical components and processes producing biologically relevant compounds, and to investigate Titan’s exotic atmospheric and surface properties. During dense-atmospheric flights, the safety of vehicles and payloads mostly relies on a proper selection and sizing of the Thermal Protection System (TPS). Ground testing include the use of Plasma wind tunnels for high-enthalpy response of thermal protection materials, studying gas-surface interactions and heat shield ablation in a pristine and flexible test environment. In this work, we focus on the aerothermochemical response of carbon-based ablators to high-enthalpy nitrogen flow, close to Titan entry trajectory peak-heating conditions. Experiments are performed on instrumented test articles assemblies of FiberForm, PICA, and samples prepared with inserts of Room Temperature Vulcanized silicone, which is used as a gap-filler for tiled heatshields.