<div class="htmlview paragraph">This paper discusses the capabilities of the ABLAT software which has been developed by ERC and Dornier for the European Space Agency. The software provides an ablation modelling capability for the ESATAN thermal analyser and consists of two sections:</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph"> <ol class="list nostyle"> <li class="list-item"> <span class="li-label">i.</span> <div class="htmlview paragraph">A stand-alone preprocessor allowing specification of the ablation model. This has both an X11/OSF Motif and a command line interface.</div> </li> <li class="list-item"> <span class="li-label">ii.</span> <div class="htmlview paragraph">An integrated solver capability within the ESATAN system, allowing transient analysis of an ablating surface in conjunction with a standard thermal model.</div> </li> </ol> </div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">After a brief overview of the major aims of the development, the software is discussed from two main points of view, the user interface facilities (how the user defines the model to the system), and the calculation facilities (what can be calculated, and how are these calculations performed).</div>