Using Pressure- and Temperature-Sensitive Paint on the Aftbody of a Capsule Vehicle

Pressure-sensitive and temperature-sensitive paint were used to visualize and quantify the surface interactions of reaction control system jets on the aftbody of capsule reentry vehicle shapes. The first model tested was an Apollo-like configuration and was used to focus primarily on the effects of the forward facing roll and yaw jets. The second model tested was an early Orion crew module configuration blowing only out of its forward-most yaw jet, which was expected to have the most intense aerodynamic heating augmentation on the model surface. This paper will present the results from the experiments, which show that with proper system design, both pressure-sensitive and temperature-sensitive paint are effective tools for studying these types of interaction in hypersonic testing environments. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]