To browse Academia. The cornerstone of ESA's contribution to this enormous international undertaking in space is the Columbus laboratory. Final integration of the module is now nearly complete and functional qualification and acceptance testing is about to staft. This article summarises the characteristics and functional architecture of Columbus, its development, integration and test approach, as well as today's qualif ication status. EXPERT is developed by the European Space Agency ESA in order to provide the scientific community with quality data on critical aero-thermodynamic phenomena encountered during hypersonic flights as well as to provide industry with system experience of re-entry vehicle manufacturing and development of hypersonic instrumentation.
The experiments address the following phenomena: TPS material characterization, surface catalysis and oxidation, plasma spectroscopy, laminar to turbulent transition, flow separation and reattachment, shock-boundary layer interactions, base flow characteristic and aerodynamic characterization of flap control surfaces.
The paper focus on the status of the EXPERT project: the design activities and the on going manufacturing, the main challenges and the expected flight data results. EXPERT will benefit future atmospheric re-entry activities ranging from cargo to human orbital transportation systems as well as re-usable launchers and scientific probes.
The EXPERT capsule features a generic simple shape and will perform a sub-orbital ballistic hypersonic flight; with a selection of major shape parameters to avoid any surface active oxidation, degradation and flow contamination. In this paper a detailed overview of the designed experiment, correlation with the theoretical aspects, results of the on-ground qualification activities and expected results from the data collected in the coming flying mission are reported and discussed.
Since the Columbus module became part of the ISS in , it provided research opportunities in special experiment facilities for fluid physics e. In addition, the Columbus Centre Aisle ambient conditions, i. Before an experiment or a payload is implemented and executed, it needs to be analysed if there are any conflicts with other experiments or payloads to be expected.
