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The ARD capsule is a European Space Agency project, designed and developed in very limited budget and schedule. These constraints had induced a particular strategy for Thermal Architecture activities: to decouple Thermal Protections Subsystem activities and Internal Thermal Control activities. The necessary relationships between the two fields have been achieved through interfaces data exchanges. These exchanges have been managed to guarantee the Vehicle Thermal Architecture coherence and to avoid risky conditions at system level. The consequence is important margins on the thermal design of the capsule. This is possible on this type of prototype where optimization is not required. Extension of such a process has to be considered cautiously.

For the HUYGENS probe heatshield, the direct-bond concept of thermal protection tiles on a structure carrying the mechanical loads was selected. The very complex environment seen during entry through TITAN atmosphere requires a specific logic for the thermal protection mechanical verification, followed by the subsystem qualification. The suitability of the HUYGENS thermal protection direct-bond on a CFRP sandwich structure for atmospheric entry is being demonstrated. It is the result of the capability of the “heated” TPS to withstand the strains generated by thermoelastic phenomena and by the carrying structure deformations (despite its large structural stiffness).