heat shield
nounDefinition of heat shield
: a barrier of ablative material to protect a space capsule from heat on its entry into an atmosphere
Examples of heat shield in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Engineers also took great pains to make the new car quiet on the highway, with heat shields and ample insulation to cut engine noise. — Washington Post, "Corvette goes mid-engine for first time to raise performance," 19 July 2019 Known as an ablative heat shield, the material was designed to burn away during re-entry, keeping heat away from the metal spacecraft. — Erin Woo, The Mercury News, "NASA Ames Apollo memories: He jumped out of a plane the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon," 17 July 2019 Additionally, specialized software on the spacecraft will keep the heat shield pointing in the right direction. — James Rogers, Fox News, "Weird solar science: How NASA's Parker probe will dive through the Sun's atmosphere," 10 Aug. 2018 Davis was reportedly given the material — two paperweights, one containing a small lunar rock, and the other containing a piece of the Apollo 11 heat shield — from her late husband, who worked as an engineer on the Apollo 11 mission. — Sarah Gray, Fortune, "Woman Sues NASA Over a Vial of Moon Dust Allegedly Given to Her by Neil Armstrong," 12 June 2018 Before the shuttle docks with the other craft, the space station crew examines the shuttle's bottom heat shield. — Dennis Hohenberger, Courant Community, "Astronaut Visits New England Air Museum," 17 Apr. 2018 An investigation later pinned the cause of the disaster on a piece of foam insulation from Columbia’s external fuel tank, which broke off and punched a hole in the heat shield on the orbiter’s left wing during launch, two weeks before the tragedy. — Mike Wall, Scientific American, "Chinese Space Station Tiangong-1 Falls to Earth," 2 Apr. 2018 After the recall, Polaris received reports of heat shields coming loose or falling off of the 2015 Ranger, including reports of fires. — William Thornton, AL.com, "Polaris to pay $27.4 million in off-road vehicle case," 2 Apr. 2018 The whole structure is covered in a four and a half-inch thick heat shield made from a single layer of carbon foam, layered between two panels of carbon fiber to withstand the 2,500 degree F temperatures. — Eric Niiler, WIRED, "NASA's New Parker Probe Will Skim the Sun's Surface," 28 Mar. 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'heat shield.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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