Thermal Protection Systems
A thermal protection system or TPS is the barrier that protects a spacecraft during the searing heat of atmospheric reentry. A secondary goal may be to protect the spacecraft from the heat and cold of space while on orbit. Multiple approaches for the thermal protection of spacecraft are in use, among them ablative heat shields, passive cooling and active cooling of spacecraft surfaces.
Read more about this topic: Atmospheric Entry
Famous quotes containing the words protection and/or systems:
“The best protection parents can have against the nightmare of a daycare arrangement where someone might hurt their child is to choose a place that encourages parents to drop in at any time and that facilitates communication among parents using the program. If parents are free to drop in and if they exercise this right, it is not likely that adults in that place are behaving in ways that harm children.”
—Gwen Morgan (20th century)
“The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air- conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)