Aerothermal Test Results From the Second Flight of the Pegasus® Booster

Noffz, Gregory K. and Moes, Timothy R. and Haering Jr., Edward A. and Kolodziej, Paul (1992) Aerothermal Test Results From the Second Flight of the Pegasus® Booster. Technical Report NASA TM-4391, Research Engineering, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

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Abstract

A survey of temperature, heat-flux, and pressure measurements was obtained at speeds through Mach 8.0 on the second flight of the Pegasus® air-launched space booster system. All sensors were distributed on the wing-body fairing or fillet. Sensors included thin foil-gauge thermocouples installed near the surface within the thermal protection system. Thermocouples were also installed on the surface of nonablating plugs. The resulting temperature time history allowed derivation of convective heat flux. In addition, commercially available calorimeters were installed on the fillet at selected locations. Calorimeters exhibited a larger change in measured heat flux than collocated nonablating plugs in response to particular events. Similar proportional variations in heat flux across different regions of the fillet were detected by both the calorimeters and nonablating plugs. Pressure ports were installed on some nonablating plugs to explore the effects of port protrusion and high-frequency noise on pressure measurements. The effect of port protrusion on static-pressure measurements was found to decrease with increasing Mach number. High-frequency noise suppression was found to be desirable but not required on any future flight.
®Pegasus is a registered trademark of Orbital Sciences Corp., Fairfax, Virginia.

EPrint Type:	NASA Technical Memorandum
Keywords:	Aerothermal test results, Flight tests, Heat flux, Pegasus®, Thermal protection
Subjects:	(01 - 09) Aeronautics: (05) Aircraft Design, Testing And Performance Aircraft/Project: Pegasus (31 - 39) Engineering: (34) Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics
ID Code:	289
Deposited On:	27 July 2004
Additional Information:	44 pages. Gregory K. Noffz, Timothy R. Moes, Edward A. Haering, Jr. (Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, California); Paul Kolodziej (Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California).