European Activities on Advanced Flight Measurement Techniques for Hypersonic Space Vehicles

*† During the last years, Europe has dedicated significant efforts to improve the quality and reliability of aerothermodynamic predictions, due to their key importance in the design and development of any hypersonic aerospace vehicle. In particular, Europe has invested a lot during the last decade in the construction, commissioning and improvement of ground based facilities as well as in the development and validation of advanced numerical tools for space vehicles design purposes. In-flight experimentation constitutes in this frame a necessary step to fully validate the fluid dynamic models addressing complex aerothermodynamic phenomena, such as high temperature thermo-chemical effects, gas-surface interactions, hypersonic boundary layer transition and aerodynamic efficiency of control surfaces, and to establish meaningful and reliable ground-to-flight extrapolation methodologies. The present paper will report on the on-going technical activities promoted and supported by the European Space Agency in the field of Advanced Flight Measurement Techniques for Hypersonic Space Vehicles; these activities focus on the development and qualification of miniaturized and accurate classical sensors as well as advanced instruments (e.g. pyrometric sensors, electron beam fluorescence assembly, miniaturized spectrometers, rear face infrared thermography set-ups) featuring improved spectral resolution and higher sampling rates. The paper will also report on potential flight opportunities for the presented instruments/assemblies, as well as on the pre-flight activities necessary for design, integration and calibration purposes.