Shuttle Plume Impingement Flight Experiment (SPIFEX) - Pressure and load plate measurements

Until STS-64 in September 1994, minimal flight data had been available on Orbiter plume impingement effects which were required in order to validate predictive methodologies for designing critical structures and rendezvous techniques for the Space Station. The Shuttle Plume Impingement Flight Experiment (SPIFEX) was designed to gather data on reaction control system (RCS) impingement loads, pressures, and heat fluxes from simple Orbiter thruster firings, as well as, highly scarfed thrusters and multiple thruster firings. One hundred test points were gathered covering six Orbiter thrusters. or combination of thrusters, impinging on the SPIFEX experiment. The present paper presents a brief description of the SPIFEX experiment, presents load and pressure measurements from STS-64, and compares the latest Orbiter plume impingement methodology with the SPIFEX test data. Results indicate that the reaction control system plume model (RPM). version 3.0, can reproduce SPIFEX flight data within 159t for the majority of measurement points.