What if, instead of replacing a spacecraft’s heat protection after a trip through the Earth’s atmosphere, engineers could simply replenish it before its next flight? 

UC Santa Barbara engineering faculty members Daniel Oropeza and Yangying Zhu are exploring that possibility through a new type of thermal protection system, or TPS, made from a heat-resistant porous metal infused with a polymer. The researchers recently received $200,000 from the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities (HSRU) to investigate a TPS that could withstand multiple space flights, protecting spacecraft returning to Earth from the heat of re-entry. 

Their project, Next Generation Thermal Protection Systems: Developing Advanced Metal-Polymer Composites for Reusable Spacecraft, is one of fifteen selected for HSRU’s inaugural ASCENDᴿ (Advancing STEM Careers through Education, Networking, and Development plus Research) Research and Leadership Program. Each project is focused on research topics that align with the U.S. Department of Defense’s science and technology priorities. The program itself aims to encourage collaboration among the twenty-four research-focused Hispanic-serving institutions that HSRU works with and give graduate students opportunities in applied research.

As part of the program, Oropeza, an assistant professor of materials, and Zhu, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, will participate in HSRU’s leadership program and add one graduate student to their research team.

The project brings together complementary expertise. Zhu contributes a background in thermal engineering and thermal mechanics, while Oropeza will focus on designing and manufacturing the materials that form their protection system.

“The challenges within materials and manufacturing problems for aerospace are interesting because they're difficult,” Oropeza said. 

Along with the promise of challenges, Oropeza and Zhu are also hoping their work connects to a larger purpose. "Space exploration, for me, is very inspiring, but also I think it brings humanity together," Oropeza said. “We all look up and want to think about what’s out there.”

That sense of wonder meets a very real engineering challenge when spacecraft return to Earth. 

How to Get Back from Space, Safely

“One of the hardest parts of flying fast — whether that's trying to get stuff back from space or flying vehicles through the atmosphere  — is that things heat up,” Oropeza said. “How do you get rid of that heat?” 
It is a problem that engineers have addressed in different ways throughout the history of spaceflight. 

The Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the mission that sent the first humans to the moon, used ablatives — materials that burn off as the spacecraft reenters the atmosphere — to protect the spacecraft that can encounter temperatures upwards of 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit as they encounter the friction of the atmosphere.

During more recent Space Shuttle missions, aerospace engineers designed thermal protection tiles to re-emit heat while insulating the shuttle. The importance of these tiles became tragically clear in February 2003, when a damaged tile led to the breakup of Space Shuttle Columbia during reentry, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Today, as government agencies and private companies pursue spacecraft that can fly repeatedly, developing thermal protection that can withstand, or be restored after, multiple flights remains an important engineering challenge. 

That is where Oropeza and Zhu hope they can offer a different approach. 

The idea, Zhu said, is to leverage the high-temperature stability of a metal coupled with the ablative capabilities of a polymer system.

Oropeza compared the process to the way you’d refuel a car, but for a different purpose. A space shuttle could fill up its thermal protection, burn it off during re-entry, and then get a refill after landing.

Building a TPS System

As part of the project, the research team will build a test chamber that uses a laser to heat the system, while an optical camera and infrared camera observes the process, Zhu said. 

Several UCSB research facilities will help the pair manufacture their system, including a 3D printer in materials professor Tresa Pollock’s laboratory, microscopy facilities, and a micro-computer tomography system that Oropeza helped bring to UCSB in November 2025. 

The micro-CT system combines multiple X-rays of a given material to create a three-dimensional X-ray image, allowing researchers to visualize internal and external geometries of the system as it’s being designed.

The approach they’re taking and the tools they’re developing will “lay the foundation for studying TPS materials in general,” Oropeza said.

Zhu agreed. “The goal is to build this test facility and demonstrate our capabilities to make these composite systems, test them, and understand them. And then these platforms give us freedom for future research.”

Building a Foundation for the Future

The project is also the first major research collaboration for both Oropeza and Zhu since joining the UCSB faculty. “It’s going to be fun,” Oropeza said. Along with excitement for the work together, the team is also looking forward to establish relationships with researchers across the nationwide ASCENDᴿ program during the one-year project. 

“We’re hoping to connect with our cohort and establish longer-term relationships with them and with other Department of Defense agencies who may be interested in these types of thermal protection systems,” Zhu said. 

The project will also open pathways for the researchers’ graduate students, who will be working on engineering problems with potential applications in national security and the aerospace industry. 

 “From a pipeline point of view,” she said, “it’s a great training opportunity for our students.”