ESA Re-Entry Black Box

This paper describes the status of the ESA study aimed at designing a standard Re-entry Black Box (RBB) targeting LEO spacecraft and launchers upper stages.The study should lead to a standard design, robust enough to withstand different re-entry environments, and flexible enough to adapt to the needs and requirements of various re-entry missions. It should fulfil primarily the following dual function: experimental data collection during re-entry (e.g. temperature, heat flux, Mach number) and "Black Box " type of device, allowing for the recording of the spacecraft's trajectory data. The latter feature would help to identify the events of an accident for spacecraft designed to survive re-entry and might be used as reference data in case of litigation and liability issues.This paper provides insight into the project status, the current preliminary design and future prospects expected.