Acusil® Thermal Protection System (TPS)
Acusil® is a lightweight, silicone syntactic foam-based thermal protection system designed to shield high-value assets like spacecraft and strategic weapons systems from intense heat while enabling RF communications.
Typed specifications6 values
Discloses 1 of 7 fields engineers filter by in this category (category median 1).
- Design lifetime
- 30 years durability · description
- Product type
- coating datasheet p.0 other ablative thermal protection system (TPS): light-weight silico…
- Material
- proprietary light-weight, silicone syntactic foam-based thermal protection system datasheet p.1
- Flight heritage
- NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover, NASA Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, SpaceX Dragon I Capsule, PAC-3 Interceptor Missile, Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM), NASA Pegasus Booster datasheet p.1
- Mounting
- adhesive bonded directly applied to surfaces or bonded onto structures as pre… · datasheet p.1
Each value is typed with its unit and measurement condition and cites the datasheet page it was taken from. Nothing is guessed: a field that is absent here has not been published by the manufacturer. machine-extracted ✓ checked by NewSpace Market ✓ manufacturer confirmed by the manufacturer.
As published by the supplier3 lines, in the manufacturer's own wording
- Acusil® ii ablation resistance
- zero ablation in heat fluxes up to 100 W/cm2
- Acusil® iv ablation resistance
- withstands up to 150 W/cm2
- Durability
- Decades (30+ years)
About
Peraton’s Acusil® is a proprietary lightweight, silicone syntactic foam-based thermal protection system (TPS) that provides excellent insulation properties to shield critical national security assets against extreme conditions, including intense heat-producing friction during atmospheric flight. It also maintains radio frequency (RF) transmission capabilities. The product suite includes Acusil® II and Acusil® IV, offering different levels of ablation resistance. Acusil® materials can be directly applied to surfaces or bonded onto structures as prefabricated panels, ensuring easy application. It retains its thermal insulative performance and RF transmission properties post-ablation. Acusil® has demonstrated decades of durability, with Acusil® II showing no degradation in insulative properties after more than a decade of storage. It has successfully withstood the rigors of transportation, ground operations, and storage, including heat and humidity exposure, for over 30 years. Acusil® is used in missile defense ballistic re-entry and NASA space missions. It has flight heritage on NASA’s 2012 Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity Rover), the Mars 2020 Lander (Perseverance Rover), SpaceX’s Dragon I Capsule, and has been used for ascent heating protection on NASA’s Pegasus Booster. It is also a component of the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC) 3 Interceptor Missile and the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM). Peraton is a Lockheed Preferred Supplier and is ISO 9001 Certified.
Documentation
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