Matthew UREN, Yu LIU, Chris JAMES, Richard MORGAN
DOI Number: 10.60853/nvcf-nd72
Conference number: HiSST-2024-00111
A dedicated exploration mission of the ice giant planets has been prioritized as a key scientific objective by many organizations, including NASA and ESA, to further understanding of their formation and atmospheric structure. In-situ measurements of the planetary atmosphere for giant planets has been successfully demonstrated with the Jupiter Galileo probe, however, there are significant uncertainties surrounding thermal loading and peak heating during giant planet entry. The usage of ground test facilities, such as free-piston impulse shock tunnels, allows for the experimental simulation of planetary entry aerothermodynamics where such uncertainties can be investigated. The X2 expansion tube at The University of Queensland is a hypersonic test facility able to simulate giant planet entry representative test flows for entry capsule model geometries, yielding valuable insights regarding the non-equilibrium processes in the shock layer that can influence survivability during entry. For assessing surface heat flux in hypersonic test facilities, the non-intrusive optical technique infrared thermography can be used, and this has been demonstrated successfully for Earth and Mars entry representative test flows. However, it has not yet been performed for giant planet entry flows in facilities such as X2. Therefore, this work will detail the characterisation and assessment of Uranus peak heating entry conditions in the X2 expansion tube and the suitability of the flow environment for future infrared thermography experiments.