An Overview of NASA Hypersonic Experimental Diagnostic and Instrumentation Technologies for Ground and Flight Testing

*† ‡ § ¶ †‡ ¶ Advances to the state of the art in experimental capabilities are required to support almost every aspect of the Hypersonics Project. These capabilities will be used to generate experimental data with quantified uncertainties for the creation and validation of advanced prediction models, as well as evaluate and provide understanding of the operation and performance of advanced concepts in laboratories, ground facilities, and flight. Current effort at NASA is to, a) Develop advanced instrumentation and testing methods for testing hypersonic vehicles and components of vehicles on the ground and in flight, so that performance can be more accurately evaluated and better understood, b) The development of robust diagnostic tools capable of measuring transient phenomena as well as withstanding a hypersonic flight environment during ascent, entry and landing. I. Introduction