Abstract: This article presents a numerical study to investigate aerodynamic heating environments of a hypersonic plate/rudder configuration. In particular, the effects of the deflection angle δ_r, gap displacement h, and boundary layer flow pattern on aerodynamic heating environment of the rudder shaft as well as its interaction region were analyzed in detail. The analysis show that the heating environment in the gap is negligible at 0° deflection angle due to the subsonic flow. However, the rudder deflection results in high speed and high pressure flow inside the gap, the thermal loads of the rudder shaft, and its interaction region almost linearly increase with increasing δ_r between 5° and 15°. The heating flux of the rudder shaft and its interaction region increase firstly and then decrease gradually with the increasing h. The heat flux of h=7 mm is nearly two times of that of h=5 mm. In addition, the flow pattern of the boundary layer exerts a significant influence on the heat flux in the gap. In full laminar case, the thermal loads of the rudder shaft and its interaction region are three to five times of those within the full turbulent case under the condition of δ_r=15°. This is because the thinner boundary layer of laminar flow results in high speed flow in the gap.