Fiber-Coupled Spectrometer for TPS Materials

EDA, Inc., in partnership with Penn State, has shown previously that the concept of embedding fiber optics within ablative TPS material has merit and should yield a successful implementation of a spectrometer "window" during a Phase-II development program.Optical instrumentation, such as optical spectrometers would provide benchmark data for fundamental flow, radiation, and materials modeling as well as provide operational correlations between vehicle reentry drag and radiation if implemented in a TPS flight test program. Without flight spectral data, and the appropriate modeling efforts, the power of prediction to assist in new heat shield design does not exist for reentry into other planetary atmospheres. This is a severe limitation for future space exploration missions which FiberPlug helps address.