Carbon–phenolic ablative materials for re-entry space vehicles: Manufacturing and properties

Thermal protection systems (TPS) are designed to protect re-entry space vehicles from the severe heating encountered during hypersonic flight through a planet’s or the earth’s atmosphere. A carbon–phenolic ablative TPS was developed, manufactured and tested with the aim of fulfilling the thermal and mechanical requirements corresponding to the actual loads experienced by a vehicle during a moon-earth re-entry. Experimental activities were carried out on two different composite systems (a resole resin coupled with a graphitic felt and a graphitic foam), and were aimed to the optimization of the manufacturing procedure and to the characterization of the mechanical behaviour and of the insulation performance of the fabricated composites.