Wiktionary
n. A heat-resistant shell that protects a spacecraft during travel through an atmosphere
Wikipedia
An aeroshell is a rigid heat-shielded shell that helps decelerate and protects a spacecraft vehicle from pressure, heat, and possible debris created by drag during atmospheric entry (see blunt body theory). Its main components consist of a heat shield (the forebody) and a back shell. The heat shield absorbs heat caused by drag during a spacecraft's atmospheric entry. The back shell carries the load being delivered, along with important components such as a parachute, rocket engines, and monitoring electronics like an inertial measurement unit that monitors the orientation of the shell during parachute-slowed descent.
Its purpose is used during the EDL process of a spacecraft's mission, or the Entry, Descent, and Landing process. First, the aeroshell decelerates the spacecraft as it penetrates the planet’s atmosphere. The heat shield absorbs the resulting friction. During descent, the parachute is deployed and the heat shield is detached. Rockets located at the back shell are initiated to assist in the decrease of the spacecraft's descent. Airbags are also inflated to cushion the impact. The spacecraft bounces on the planet’s surface directly after the first impact. The spacecraft's lander petals are deployed after the airbags are deflated and retracted. Communication throughout this entire process is relayed back and forth from mission control and the actual spacecraft through low-gain antennas that are attached to the back shell and on itself. Throughout the entry, descent, and landing stages, tones are sent back to earth in order to communicate the success or failure of each of these critical steps.
Aeroshells are a key component of space probes that must land intact on the surface of any object with an atmosphere. They have been used on all missions returning payloads to the Earth (if one counts the Space Shuttle thermal protection system as an aeroshell). They are also used for all landing missions to Mars, Venus, Titan and (in the most extreme case) the Galileo probe to Jupiter.
Usage examples of "aeroshell".
They assure me of facilities adequate to launch my aeroshell back into orbit when the visit is completed, so there's no need to go auto-mine an asteroid and build an ungainly, all-purpose craft.
It grew and grew into an ungainly looking combination of saucer and teacup: the circular aeroshell drag brake topped by the cylindrical body of the landing vehicle.
Jamie saw that the ceramic underside of the aeroshell was blackened and streaked from its burning flight through the upper Martian atmosphere.
Finally the noise ceased, the sand stopped blowing, and the segments of the aeroshell drooped to the ground like wilted petals of a huge metal flower.
Unzipping the jumpsuit, he pulled out the hand calculator which disguised the camera and spent the next fifteen seconds hastily photographing images of the twin aeroshells in the Constellation's cargo bay.
Above them, on the other side of Arm Two's long truss and sheathed in layers of protective gold film, were the two aeroshells which August Nash had photographed in the payload bay of the Constellation many months earlier.
His pictures of the two aeroshells nestled within the orbiter's cargo bay, after study by the firm's photo analysts, had gone far to confirm everyone's worst suspicions.
She sought out the little aeroshells and found one, two, tumbling away toward the sun.
The simulations show that we have sufficient materials to make some quite large aeroshells, especially if we sacrifice some of the aerogel insulation to this important project.