*5.6. Final Mass Estimation*

The three presented ADD concepts were initially optimised for thermal performance (Sections 5.2–5.4) and then analysed in terms of mechanical performance (cf. Sections 5.5.2 and 5.5.3). The load-bearing structure for the ablative TPS was iterated to obtain a feasible design of the composite sandwich layup (Section 5.5.1). For a holistic comparison of the concepts in the context of their application in a reusable microlauncher, their masses are an important performance indicator and are therefore compiled in Table 6.


**Table 6.** Mass comparison of the three TPS concepts.

It can be seen that the ablative TPS with the load-bearing CFRP sandwich structure is the lightest concept, followed by the CMC corrugated core. The proposed hierarchical lattice core / PCM solution has a significantly higher mass, at a factor of three compared to the other concepts. It must be noted that the CMC corrugated core as well as lattice core/PCM solution were not optimised for structural performance but only for thermal performance. Therefore, their masses as well as the resulting stresses cannot be taken as an absolute measure for performance of the concepts. Rather, the comparably high mass/poor mechanical performance of the ITPS solutions should be seen as an indication that further optimization of these structures is required.
