Since the beginning of the Mars planet exploration, the characterization of carbon dioxide hypersonic flows to simulate a spaceship's Mars atmosphere entry conditions has been an important issue. We have developed a Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectrometer with a new room-temperature operating antimony-based distributed feedback laser (DFB) diode laser to characterize the velocity, the temperature and the density of such flows. This instrument has been tested during two measurement campaigns in a free piston tunnel cold hypersonic facility and in a high enthalpy arc jet wind tunnel. These tests also demonstrate the feasibility of mid-infrared fiber optics coupling of the spectrometer to a wind tunnel for integrated or local flow characterization with an optical probe placed in the flow.
Keywords: 07.07.Df; 07.57.Ty; 42.55.Px; 42.62.Fi; 42.79.Qx; 47.40.Ki; 96.30.Gc; CO2 monitoring; Mars atmosphere; distributed feedback (DFB); gas sensor; hypersonic flow; laser velocimetry; tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy.