Transmission and Scattering Characteristics in Plasma Sheaths of Re-Entry Vehicles Due to Multieffect Synergy

The interaction between electromagnetic (EM) waves and plasma sheaths of reentry vehicles has attracted widespread attention for solving the blackout problem in reentry control and communication. In this article, an integrated model is proposed to study EM wave transmission and scattering characteristics in plasma sheaths for typical altitude and velocity regimes. The key plasma parameters and their distributions of the plasma sheath are investigated based on the previously reported flying data. Reflection, transmission, and absorption coefficients as well as radar cross sections (RCSs) in studied cases are calculated by the integrated model. The results show that multieffects of the plasma sheath, including the high-density, strong-collision, wide-dispersion, subwavelength thickness, etc., can synergistically affect the transmission and scattering characteristics. EM signals of control and communication are then reflected, transmitted, or absorbed differently in various parameter regimes of the plasma sheath. The backward RCS of reentry vehicles may decrease or increase due to variations of feature EM shapes of the plasma sheath. Communication and control properties of the reentry vehicles are also revealed by synergy of multieffects of the sheath on EM waves in various regimes.