Study on Non-Equilibrium Atomic Radiation Characteristics During High-Speed Re-Entry of a Spacecraft Capsule

This study investigates the non-equilibrium radiation characteristics during the high-speed re-entry of a lunar-return-type capsule under rarefied atmospheric conditions. A line-by-line spectral model was developed to compute atomic emission and absorption coefficients for excited nitrogen and oxygen atoms. Coupled with the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, the Photon Monte Carlo (PMC) method was employed to solve the radiative energy transport equation. The model was validated against the FIRE II flight experiment at 1631 s and 1634 s, showing improved agreement with experimental heat flux data compared to previous numerical results. A detailed sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the influence of spectral discretization and the number of emitted photons per computational cell. Results indicate that low spectral resolution can cause non-physical fluctuations in wall heat flux, while increasing the number of photons improves local smoothness. Optimal parameters were identified as 50,000 spectral points and 5000 photons per cell. The model was further applied to a lunar-return-type capsule re-ntering at 90 km and 95 km altitudes. It was found that radiative heating is spatially decoupled from aerodynamic heating and primarily governed by excited species concentration and line-of-sight geometry. At 90 km, radiative heating accounted for over 15.31% of the aerodynamic heating, more than double that at 95 km. These results underscore the necessity of considering radiation effects in the design of thermal protection systems, particularly at high re-entry velocities and large angles of attack.