A free piston double diaphragm shock tube with 70 × 70 mm cross-section at test section was newly developed for the purpose of investigating nonequilibrium phenomena behind a shock wave. This paper presents the performance of the shock tube and the measurement system newly developed. Experimental investigation to clarify its characteristics was conducted for various operational parameters, such a rupture pressure of the first diaphragm and initial pressures of the low pressure tube, the high

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... ssure tube, and the compression tube. Based on the characteristics experiment, a performance map of the shock tube was obtained by changing the operation parameters. The result shows that the shock tube is capable of generating the shock layer corresponding to the super orbital reentry flight conditions. The newly developed measurement system enables us to obtain the spatial distribution of spectra behind a shock wave with high spatial and time resolution. A description of the measurement system and typical examples of the measured spectra are presented. ( 427 )