Modeling of Stardust Reentry Reacting Thermal and Chemical Ablation Flow

The ablation process of the Stardust thermal protection layer is designed to reduce aerodynamic heating during reentry, and its impact on the o w eld and surface parameters is investigated in this work using the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. Surface thermal and chemical ablation processes as well as ionization processes are studied. It is found that chemical ablation due to the reaction between solid carbon and gaseous oxygen and nitrogen atoms is dominant over thermal ablation. As the altitude decreases, the forebody surface temperature increases, the ablation process becomes more intensive, and the inuence of ionization reactions becomes more important due to a denser free stream condition.