Abstract: The performance of different numerical schemes were studied by simulation of a hypersonic flow past a sharp double cone. The capability of six numerical schemes—Roe FDS(flux difference splitting), van Leer FVS(flux vector splitting), AUSM(advection up-stream splitting method),AUSMDV, AUSM+ and upwind TVD(total variation diminishing) were employed on the simulation of double-cone flow characteristic. The results show that all sorts of spatial discretization schemes have a good discrimination of shock wave, however the discrimination of viscosity vary with the dissipation of schemes evidently. The least dissipative schemes give the best discrimination of viscosity; also the heat transfer extremum turns out to be very sensitive to the dissipation of schemes. Conclusions were got that the smaller the scheme dissipation, the larger the heat transfer extremum, and with its location near the frontal.