The Role of the Spectral Lines of Atoms and Ions in Radiative Heating of the Surfaces of Space Capsules

This paper presents the results of two-dimensional calculations of the radiative heating of the Fire-II, Stardust, and Orion space capsules and the large-scale segmental-conical spacecraft (SCS) when entering the Earth’s dense atmosphere at orbital and superorbital velocities. The peculiarity of this study is that it accounts for the atomic lines of atoms and ions using the NERAT+ASTEROID computer platform. This computer platform is intended to solve the full system of equations of radiative gas dynamics of viscous, heat-conducting, physically and chemically nonequilibrium gas and radiation transfer in two- and three-dimensional geometry. The spectral optical properties of the high-temperature gases are computed over the entire flow field using ab initio quasi-classical and quantum-mechanical methods. The calculation of the transfer of selective heat radiation was carried out using the line-by-line method on specially generated computational grids that are nonuniform in their radiation wavelength, which allow considerable savings in computational resources with detailed description of the contours of atomic lines.