Nyx Bikini testing

Testing Nyx Bikini at The Exploration Company.

Flying on Europe's new rocket Ariane 6, The Exploration Company’s Nyx Bikini intends to perform a ballistic reentry demonstration.

Nyx Bikini is a technology demonstrator of 60cm diameter – about the size of a large lampshade – that will allow Exploration Company to get their first data on atmospheric reentry and calibrate their mathematical models.

At the end of the Ariane 6 mission, the upper stage of Europe’s new rocket will be flying at roughly 28 800 km/h around Earth. A few minutes before the upper stage sends itself to a fiery and safe disposal into Earth’s atmosphere, Nyx Bikini will be detached to also fall down to Earth.

Unlike the Ariane 6 upper stage, Nyx Bikini has been designed to survive the intense heat that generates during reentry – up to 2100 degrees Celsius.

Developed in just nine months and for a cost of under 2 million euros Nyx Bikini is an example of the new European space sector.

Some of the hardware in the reentry capsule is not designed for space, for example the avionics hardware – the spacecraft’s ‘brain’ – has been taken from the drone industry and is not qualified to withstand the radiation it may receive in space. As the Nyx Bikini mission will last just three hours, the risk of a serious failure is low and using established hardware for Earth is a way to reduce costs and time to build.

Another example is how Nyx Bikini phones home during its descent into the Pacific Ocean: it will be using a standard satellite phone. Simulations show it should work, but the phone terminal was – unsurprisingly – not designed to be used from inside a returning spacecraft.

Bikini is an uncontrolled capsule, so in order to prevent that it tumbles and reenters with its heatshield backwards, three flaps will force Bikini to reenter with its heatshield forward. This technical solution bears more risk, but is cheaper than costly and complicated thrusters.