IRENE preliminary study (Italian Re-Entry Nacell preliminary Study)

ESA is supporting a study to develop a small flight demonstrator of a re-entry capsule with deployable heat shield to be embarked as a secondary payload in the inter-stage adapter of a sub-orbital Maxus sounding rocket. This capsule will be ejected during the ascent phase of the rocket payload section, after its separation from the booster, to demonstrate capsule release, heat shield deployment, safe re-entry and recovery of payload. The deployable thermal shield is designed as a low-cost, disposable system, exploiting commercial materials to a large extent. The concept may be applied to any ESA mission in the framework of the Science and Robotic Exploration Program, requiring planetary entry and, possibly also to ESA missions in the framework of Human Spaceflight, requiring planetary entry or re-entry. The technology offers also an interesting potential for aerobraking/aerocapture and for de-orbiting of small satellites or payloads. The planned Maxus experiment will serve as a technology proof-of-concept whereby larger capsules, with a low-cost, disposable heat shield, could exploit similar technical solutions for Earth observation, short-notice, orbital missions, both for civil and military purposes. This paper summarizes the results of preliminary activities, regarding the Maxus flight scenario with the related system requirements, the presentation of different possible solutions for the deployable heat shield and a first selection of the avionics and sensors to be embarked.