Will the "in-line" design of the Orion spacecraft eliminate the need for shuttle-style tiles?

Question

I'm assuming that putting the spacecraft at the top of a tower of boosters will help. I know many refer to Orion as "Apollo on steroids", and that the design is similar, although larger. I think I read that the bottom of the Orion capsule will have one big shield, similar to Apollo. But will "shuttle-style" tiles still be needed on the sides of the capsule? (I know that most of the heat of re-entry is on the bottom of the ship, but certainly some protection is needed elsewhere.) If tiles are needed, does the simpler design of a capsule allow for more standardized tiles, rather than the very precise size/shape and jigsaw-type assembly of the shuttle's tiles?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Shuttle style tiles won't be used; the heat shield will be an ablative type (as was the case with Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo). It will be a "frisbee" shaped device impregnated with various resins designed to melt and fall away, thus taking the heat it took to melt it away from the spacecraft structure.

Answer 2

No. And yes.

The complex nature of the shuttle's tiles is due to the (comparatively) irregular shape of its lower surface during reentry. Its launch configuration is largely irrelevant.

Put a shuttle at the top of an Ares I launch vehicle, and it would still need complex heat-shield tiles for reentry. The Orion capsule will still need a heat shield, but it can be MUCH simpler.

Answer 3

The ablative heat shielding on the bottom side and edges of the Orion capsule would be mostly all the reentry shielding it will need. With landing of the capsule on dry land instead of water, it is hoped that the shield and the capsules can be reused for many missions. No tiles for reentry will be needed on the nose and sides of the capsule.

Answer 4

It will not require tiles on the side of the capsule. The cone-shape of the capsule means the bottom is bigger than the top so much of the heat is routed around the capsule and very little of it hits the sides.

Answer 5

NASA awarded a $14 million contract to Huntington Beach, California's Boeing Co. this month to develop the vital ablative heat shields that will protect Orion vehicles as they reenter the Earth's atmosphere at speeds of 16,700 miles per hour (26,876 kilometer per hour) from the ISS, and up to 25,000 miles per hour (40,233 kilometers per hour) on a return trip from the Moon.

The contract includes plans for heat shield samples, designs, a full-scale demonstration unit and a series of detailed studies to evaluate the proprietary phenolic impregnated carbon ablator (PICA) mixture manufactured by Boeing's Maine-based subcontractor Fiber Materials, Inc.

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