Baptism of fire in the plasma cloud

The Institute for Construction Methods and Design Research at the German Centre for Space and Air Travel (DLR) researches suitable protective tiles and has successfully tested its latest development on board a Russian FOTON-M2 space capsule. The heat shield for future, re-usable spacecraft has withstood its baptism of fire. The aim was to test the ceramic fibre components which were fitted to the external casing of the capsule. The experiment was a complete success: the CMC components proved to be unaffected by the high level of heat stress, all the sensors functioned perfectly and made it possible for the necessary data to be evaluated. During the experiment on re-entry technology, therefore, a heat protection system made completely of the ceramic composite material C/C-SiC flew through the atmosphere for the very first time.