Messerschmitt-bolkow-blohm Gmbh

Messerschmitt-boelkow-blohm Gesellschaft MIT Beschraenkter Haftung

Messerschmitt-boelkow-blohm Gmbh

Karl Keller

Bernd Kunkel

Reinhold Lutz

Herbert Grallert

Wolfgang Keinath

A thermal insulation system 1, especially for low-temperature containers, formed of at least two multilayer mats 4 and 5, which are made from fiber mats 8 and are separated by a gas-tight film 6. The inner multilayer mat 4 arranged directly on the container wall 2 is filled with a gas, which cannot condense during operation and whose pressure can be adjusted to the actual ambient pressure. The outer multilayer mat 5 is filled with the ambient gas, generally air or nitrogen, and the pressure is adjusted to the ambient pressure. The multilayer mats 4 and 5 may be further subdivided by reflecting films 7 that are permeable to gas.

Heat insulating system

A high temperature multi-layer thermal insulation is constructed especially for insulating spacecraft. For this purpose the insulation is formed of a plurality of porous material layers, such as ceramic fiber layers, separated from each other by highly reflective gas permeable foils. The insulation has an outer hot side and an inner cold side. The ceramic fibers are so arranged that the layer density increases from the outer side toward the inner side while the fiber diameter decreases from the outer side to the inner side. Compared to conventional heat shield type insulations of spacecraft, the present insulation is relatively lightweight and is able to better discharge again at lower flight altitudes any heat stored in the insulation at higher transient re-entry altitudes.

Multi-layer thermal insulation, especially for spacecraft

A high temperature heat shield system for re-entry vehicles and high speed ircraft is assembled from separate insulating panels made of metal foil layers diffusion soldered together and with a ceramic fiber material filled into interspaces between the metal foil layers. In this arrangement structural metal foil layers carry mechanical loads while separate reflecting foil layers and the ceramic fiber material are non-load bearing.

High temperature heat shield system

A device for acceleration measurements and, in particular, for gravitational field measurements in, for example, earth orbits, which has a body arranged movably in a force field, the position of which can be detected by a position location device. The force acting upon the body is anisotropic and, at least in the direction of the acceleration to be determined, is not a linear function of the deflection of the body from its resting position. In a preferred further development the body is suspended by four tension springs, which in the resting position of the body are arranged in a plane perpendicular to the direction of the acceleration to be determined, and which each form right angles with the adjacent spring. With 3 separate optoelectronic position detector receivers plus corresponding illuminators which provides some measurement redundancy, all acceleration planes can be measured with a great dynamic range. In the main direction, forces as small as 10.sup.-12 g will be measurable. With the position detectors, the device is much simpler and more compact than interferometric devices at equal precision. Other embodiments are described.

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Munich, Germany

Karl Keller