Current status of instrumentation developments at IRS: in situ investigations and airborne measurement campaigns

The participation of IRS in entry missions is two-fold: development activities e.g. in the field of TPS qualification using the IRS plasma wind tunnels are successfully performed such as for Titan Huygens or PARES. Another field is the development of in-flight instrumentations and measurement techniques for observation missions. On this basis such systems have been developed and/or flown aboard vehicles such as EXPRESS, MIRKA, IRDT and X38. In 2006 IRS participated in the airborne observation mission for STARDUST using a spectroscopic set-up developed specifically for this purpose on basis of a laboratory spectrometer. Presently, three different in-flight measurement systems are being developed at IRS for the aerothermodynamic demonstrator capsule EXPERT. A further combined system called COMPARE is in the design phase for SHEFEX2. In addition, the data of the observation mission for the entry of ATV the end of September 2008 is being evaluated.