Products
Thermal Material Systems
Textron Defense Systems has a notable heritage in aerospace materials research, development and manufacturing. Our thermal protection materials kept America’s astronauts safe during reentry for NASA’s Apollo program.
Today, our unmatched team of highly specialized experts in aerospace materials provides robust material solutions that deliver protection to structures and re-entry vehicle air frames that protect personnel and high-value assets. For example, our lightweight and highly efficient ablator Avcoat 5026-39-HC/G is the thermal protection material of choice for the NASA Orion Crew Exploration vehicle program. In addition, Textron (Avco) pioneered the development of syntact foam composites and continues to provide these lightweight ablative materials.
We maintain a fully operational, extensive aerothermal modeling capability for heat shield materials. These flight-proven computer codes predict thermal response, recession and shape change for all entry environments.
Our expertise includes:
- Thermal coatings with large and/or complex shapes for a variety of specialized applications
- Qualifications of adhesively bonded assemblies
- Vacuum bag, compression and autoclave molding
- Molding compound development
- Material selection, compatibility, test and performance evaluations
- Full post-test analysis and real-time data telemetry acquisition of GPS-navigated hypersonic vehicles
- Advanced aero-system design and production
- Radomes and other protective systems
