UACI Alum HeetShield Drives Innovation in Space Insulation

On August 29, researchers tested the next generation of thermal insulations on a rocket launched to LEO in a project called “Breaking Atmosphere” in Van Horn, Texas.  The test culminates years of research at HeetShield Inc. (Flagstaff AZ) and was made possible by NASA’s Flight Opportunity and Small Business Innovative Research programs.  The 5.8 inch diameter test article was assembled by Ryzing Technologies (Staunton VA) and included Flexible Insulation with Reinforced Aerogel (FIRA) and Opacified Fibrous Insulation (OFI), two new insulations developed by HeetShield, and was exposed to rocket engine exhaust during launch and landing maneuvers on the mission.  This test is intended to prove the efficacy of these materials in a relevant environment, clearing the way for their use in broader applications.

FIRA was originally developed to support the NASA Convective Heating Improvement for Emergency Fire Shelters (CHIEFS) that developed an improved fire shelter for wildland fire fighters.  They used knowledge gained from developing Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) for re-entry vehicles to demonstrate a fire shelter that would protect an occupant for up to 3 minutes.  Although the current M2002 fire shelter works over 90% of the times it is deployed, fires are becoming more extreme due to climate change so researchers at NASA and the USFS collaborated to prevent more tragedies like the one that cost the lives of 19 fire fighters at Yarnell Hill in 2013.  FIRA embeds aerogel, which has extremely low thermal conductivity, in a matrix of ceramic fibers to produce a thin, flexible barrier to convective heat transfer. 

OFI was developed by AFOSR for use on hypersonic vehicles ranging in design from a space plane that can fly from San Francisco to Tokyo in 3 hours to missiles that can protect from hypersonic weapons developed by China or Russia.  Flying at speeds over the speed of sound leads to surface temperatures that can exceed 3000F, and is mostly transferred as radiant heat like the heat from the Sun.  OFI includes ceramic particles whose size, shape and base material are optimized to block infrared wavelengths of heat, making it much more effective under these extreme conditions.

The flight tested the next generation of Thermal Protection System (TPS) for NASA’s Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD).  NASA is developing deployable aerodynamic decelerators to enhance, and enable, robotic and scientific missions to destinations with atmospheres such as Mars, Venus, and Titan, as well as returning payloads to Earth from Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The benefit of deployable decelerators is that relatively large atmospheric entry vehicles can be designed to fit within a comparatively small vehicle launch fairing. Deployable decelerator technology will enable delivery of an estimated 20 metric tons of payload required to support human exploration of Mars, and will also enable return of large payloads from Low Earth Orbit, like stem cells and semiconductors, as well as launch asset recovery for reduced cost of space access. For human exploration of Mars, it is estimated that a deployable decelerator may have a diameter of 18 meters.  HeetShield’s insulations are expected to make the HIAD payload recovery system even more efficient by increasing the available payload volume.

The flight experiment was named Breaking Atmosphere by students at BASIS, a Flagstaff K-12 school.  Students were invited to suggest names and vote for their favorite name.  In addition to the obvious meaning for a re-entry vehicle that returns to Earth by breaking through the atmosphere, the name also refers to HIAD’s methos of safely returning payloads to Earth’s surface using atmospheric braking to slow and control descent.

HeetShield, founded in 2020, was created to commercialize thermal insulation research funded by NASA, the Air Force, USMC, USDA, and NSF. The company licensed existing technologies, developed new materials, and is now focused on creating innovative applications and reducing manufacturing costs. HeetShield graduated from the University of Arizona's Center for Innovation and Flagstaff's NACET/MoonShot incubators. Next, in collaboration with Carbon Utility, HeetShield will demonstrate advanced insulations made from atmospheric carbon, aiming to combat climate change. This STTR project, sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, will involve work at the University of Houston.

For more information about HeetShield, contact Steve Miller, CEO of HeetShield, at 928-779-5000 or info@heetshield.com.