3 ms·
The gasses get so hot they give off a lot of black body radiation. Heat shield is mostly beat up with infrared. When the gases decompress they'll be a lot cool
by BryanLegend 3y ago
The gasses get so hot they give off a lot of black body radiation. Heat shield is mostly beat up with infrared.
When the gases decompress they'll be a lot cooler, just like your AC.
- pfdietz 3y agoI believe for entry from LEO, and particularly for small RVs like this one, convective heating is orders of magnitude higher than radiative heating. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140012475/downloads/20140012475.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140012475/downloads/20... (see slide 7)
- BryanLegend 3y agoFrom Slide 7: "Radiation dominates convection at ~11.5km/s for 1m radius • Radiation dominates convection at ~10km/s for 5m radius"
- pfdietz 3y agoSince this is reentering from LEO, it's maybe 8km/s (and dropping). And the radius of curvature on the nose of that shield was maybe 20 cm?