Hypersonic Data Recovery

Systima Technologies, Inc. proposes the development of an unmanned hypersonic test vehicle recovery system that will greatly enhance the effectiveness of hypersonic flight testing. Systima plans to perform a comprehensive review of the various hypersonic vehicle test environments and recovery requirements in order to develop recommendations for suitable vehicle recovery technologies for the range of hypersonic mission scenarios and vehicle constraints. These recommendations shall be based upon recognition that each hypersonic test has a unique mission profile, necessitating multi-staged and/or adaptive recovery systems for performance over the range of flight regimes (from as high as Mach 10 through recovery). Consideration will be given to span of performance of the various approaches, scaling, staging and combination options, and systems constraints. Systima has already developed deceleration technologies suitable for hypersonic vehicle trajectory control as well as space-qualified parachute mortar systems used for reentry vehicle recovery, and its trade studies shall expand upon these capabilities to include additional energy-management approaches. Recommendations from the Phase I will be used to direct development of a prototype recovery system in the Phase II effort.