Abstract: The basic interaction processes of shocks and collisional heating between a hypersonic vehicle and near space atmospheric particles are studied in this paper. A magnetic plasma sheath model around a hypersonic vehicle is built to calculate the heat transfer from the hypersonic flow to a material surface, and four main mechanisms, which are called the magnetic-thermal screen effects, play important roles to screen the flow heat transferring to a hypersonic vehicle. A new type of thermal protection materials with high tenacity and light mass density, based on the magnetic screen effect, is developed and the ground tests are carried out in the laboratory The test results clearly show that the magnetic-thermal screen effect really protects the material's surface from the high density heat flow, and the surface erosion caused by the high density heat flow can be neglected. The high density heating flow is generated by a laminar plasma jet with a heat density of about 2 MW·m^-2, which provide a different method to carry out the high density heat flow protection experiment in small scale laboratories.