At the initial stages of the development of prospective space vehicles,it is necessary to study their aerothermodynamic characteristics along the reentry trajectory.Experimental modeling of such conditions is difficult from the technical viewpoint;therefore,numerical simulation is the main tool for studying space vehicles high-altitude aerothermodynamics.The continuum approach to numerical simulation of flow is inapplicable at high flight altitudes because of rarefaction and thermal nonequilibrium ecects,therefore the kinetic approach,such as the direct simulation Monte Carlo(DSMC) method,should be used.