Numerical analysis of the problem of heating of the multilayer heat shield of a descending space vehicle with allowance for ablation in external and internal heat shield layers

A method for calculating the heating of a multilayered heat shield taking into account ablation from the outer and inner heat shield layers is proposed and implemented. Two heat shield models (accurate and simplified) are examined. The temperature fields and the ablation magnitudes produced by the two models are compared. Under the entry conditions imposed, it is shown that the ablation produced by the simplified model is overestimated by roughly 8% as compared with the accurate model. The numerical results presented correspond to a space vehicle entering the Earth's atmosphere.