Space Shuttle Body Armour?

[J.A.W.]

Golfer, you are keen on the ol' space bird..

Were those fabric matrix applique panels added after the foam fuel tank insulation strike incident?

That caused the re-entry/2nd - SS loss?

As a form of 'body armour'?

[Karnak]

I don't think it would be very useful against impacts, just against heat.

[Golfer]

Golfer, you are keen on the ol' space bird..

Were those fabric matrix applique panels added after the foam fuel tank insulation strike incident?

That caused the re-entry/2nd - SS loss?

As a form of 'body armour'?

Heat protection.  The parts that don't get RFH (again, a measure of how really hot something is) don't need the same tile system.  Cheaper, simpler and worked just fine




Been that way since before I knew what a space shuttle was.  Challenger flew with blanket panels in the early 80's.

Columbia didn't have them for STS-1 AFAIK.

[J.A.W.]

Great pix again - thanks G..

So the black ceramic tiles were for re-entry RFH duty..
 & the fabric-matrix blankies were primarily to insulate the crew spaces inside from the ambient hot/cold-sun/shade in space?

After the foam insulation strike damage, apart from a close (EVA?) inspection in orbit,
were any other pro-active protective measures taken, AFAYK?

[Golfer]

There are both black and white tiles.  Starting with Challenger (the second completed shuttle after Columbia) most of the white tiles were swapped out with the blankets because the portions of the orbiter where they were used wasn't hot enough to justify the extra complexity of using tiles.

They weren't blankets you wrap yourself up in.  They were in lieu of tiles.  Same purpose except...foldable.

[J.A.W.]

Ok, G, were the blankets bonded on, & were they replaced after flight?

& that nose cone, in the pic, is an ablative shield missing from it, or is that it?

Did the blankets on aero-surfaces affect the air-flying performance prior to touch-down appreciably?

[Golfer]

I'm not a NASA engineer and my give a damn level isn't really high enough for the subject to answer your questions for you.  The concept may be foreign to you but there is information out there and you yourself can have nearly unlimited access to all the information for the history of humanity.

I'll get you started.

Click this
↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=space+shuttle+thermal+protection+system+materials

[J.A.W.]

G..eeeze ..that is too funny..

Esp' coming from someone with a clear SS fixation..

Ah well.. at least I've redirected the previous thread hi-jacking to a dedicated thread..
.. if you do want to keep going on about SS stuff..

[save]

darn, I thought we where talking about the Yak-3 

[J.A.W.]

Did Yak 3s have fabric panels?

Or was that only Yak 1 & 7 variants..l.o.l...

[MiloMorai]

Did Yak 3s have fabric panels?

It had a semi bubble canopy tho.

[alpini13]

  if your interested, the material for the panels in the 1990-95 era,was processed by a small company in newtown  pa. it was then sent back to nasa to become panels. the newtown pa company was chosen because of its military ties(it was formerly owned by colt firearms) and was also part of the gore company. you may remeber the gore company created a process to mesh a water resistant material with cloth..creating GORTEX.  the machine  that this technology was pioneered on was at the newtown pa building.  the newtown company also had a unique patented machine for processing material which at the time was being used by boeing,mac-douglas and scarebus...i mean airbus. the company name was platomer products. i worked in the labratory from 1987-95

[Sombra]

I guess you know, but anyway: The foam impact on STS-107 was in the leading edge of the wing, protected by "reinforced carbon-carbon", not tiles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforced_carbon-carbon

Carbon–carbon is well-suited to structural applications at high temperatures, or where thermal shock resistance and/or a low coefficient of thermal expansion is needed. While it is less brittle than many other ceramics, it lacks impact resistance; Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed during atmospheric re-entry after one of its RCC panels was broken by the impact of a piece of foam insulation from the Space Shuttle External Tank. This catastrophic failure was due in part to original shuttle design requirements which did not consider the likelihood of such violent impacts.