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A one-dimensional numerical technique is presented herein for determining the surface temperature boundary condition from an in-depth temperature history that is obtained from a single thermocouple in the Space Shuttle orbiter's thermal protection system (TPS). An iterative solution technique is given for solving this inverse heat conduction problem with a multi-material system that has been modeled with unequally spaced nodes. Results are presented for both a test case and an actual flight case (the second flight of the Space Shuttle). Heat flux, backed out from thermocouple temperature, is shown to match angle-of-attack maneuver phasing for an effective thermocouple displacement below the surface. Backed-out heat flux for an effective thermocouple depth is also shown to provide an acceptablc match with surface calorimeter data.