Aerothermal loads are a design driving factor during launcher development as the thermal loads directly in- fluence TPS design and trajectory. Recent developments in reusable launch vehicles (RLV) (e.g. SpaceX, Blue Origin) have added the dimension of refurbishment to the challenges the thermal design must con- sider. For disposable launchers the heat flux due to base heating during ascent needs to be considered for aft thermal protections system (TPS) and structural design. With the current

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... opean long term strategy[1] moving towards a reusable first stage - aerothermal loads may significantly change. In order to advance knowledge on RLV relevant technologies the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the French Space Agency (CNES) entered into a collaboration agree- ment. This allows a significant increase of the organisational knowledge at a technical and economic level. This collaboration includes in particular a vertical take-off and vertical landing (VTVL) reusable subscale launcher first stage demonstrator. The vehicle is called CALLISTO, which stands for Cooperative Action Leading to Launcher Innovation in Stage Toss back Operations [2]. For the CALLISTO vehicle the high- est heat fluxes are mainly due to heating from hot exhaust gases and heated air in proximity of the aft bay and on the exposed structures like legs and fins. The development of the plume extension is different for the considered re-entry, when compared to Falcon 9, or the studies presented in [3, 4]. As shown by Dumont et al.[5] the plume remains relatively concentrated at the aft end of the vehicle due to high atmospheric pressure and only very low fractions of actual exhaust gas species enclosing the vehicle. In the current study we conducted computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies in order to determine the aerothermal loads on the vehicle during descent through the landing approach corridor. Further the sensitivity of the plume-vehicle interaction to angle of attack, chemistry and turbule [...]