Kentucky Re-entry Universal Payload System (KRUPS): Second Atmospheric Re-entry Flight

Kentucky Re-entry Universal Payload System (KRUPS) is a small-scale re-entry capsule developed at the University of Kentucky. The KRUPS project began in 2013 with the aspiration of providing an affordable and repeatable method of collecting data on the re-entry environment. Numerically-based methods used to model re-entry require experimental data to validate their predictions. However, re-entry data is not easily obtained. Flight tests of re-entry vehicles require extensive time and resources, including a substantial financial burden. Alternatively, ground testing is not able to accurately and completely replicate the complex re-entry environment. Thus, there is a need for an inexpensive and accessible means of conducting re-entry experiments, and this was the driving motivation behind the creation of KRUPS. Since the project began, numerous suborbital flight tests have been conducted; these tests led to the first hypersonic re-entry from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021. Following the success of the first Kentucky Re-entry Probe Experiment (KREPE) mission, KREPE-2 seeks to return KRUPS to an overall Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of nine. The success of KREPE-2 will further solidify KRUPS as a reliable method of data collection, instrumentation testing, and validation of newly developed thermal protection systems (TPS).