Simulations
Re-entry
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Re-entry
Re-entry trajectory from 200km orbit. 4 Second de-orbit burn over North America with recovery taking place in Western Ireland (sic).
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A 4 second full thrust burn starts the descent. You can see the atmosphere really starts to have an effect on speed at an altitude of around 70Km.
The drogue chute is deployed at around 130Km and slows the craft down. Note the peak force on the drogue chords exceeds 3KN. The main chute is deployed at 10Km.
The slowdown induced by the drogue chute is enough to keep the leading edge temperature down below destructive levels (temperatures below -60ºC are not simulated).
If the drogue chute deployment fails the velocity gradient doesn't look very different, but the skin temperatures reached would destroy the craft:
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Mission Patch
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