HOME     ABOUT      AWARDS     CONTACT US     JOBS    

The problem of spacecraft entry into planetary atmospheres poses one of the greatest challenges to, and motivations for the development of computational methods, non-equilibrium gas dynamics, and mission operations. ELORET researchers have worked and published extensively in the field of Atmospheric Entry, directly supporting a variety of NASA missions and applications. Expertise and help are available in the following:

Entry Computations/Simulations

• vehicle heating predictions including base flows
• multi-temperature non-equilibrium flow simulation using slip and catalytic boundary conditions
• DSMC method for rarefied flow about vehicles
• flow computations for spacecraft during entry at all flight speeds, including final descent
• molecular dynamics simulations of reactive and non-reactive collisions

Entry Physics

• thermal response and pyrolysis of heatshield materials
• gas-surface interactions
• thermochemistry
• thermal excitation, chemical reactions, ionization
• energetic and highly-ionized flows about re-entry probes
• atmospheric phenomena related to global and local dust storms

Entry Engineering

• blunt body aerothermodynamics
• aerobraking of spacecraft for orbital maneuvers
• ballistic entry and aerocapture trajectories
• heat shield sizing and erosion
• hypervelocity impact phenomena
• satellite retrieval systems
• wake flows and base heating including radiation

Applications

• aerodynamics and heating of space shuttle, rockets, missiles, and re-usable launch vehicles
• CFD analysis of aerobraking vehicles: AFE, ASTV, Pathfinder, MESUR
• DSMC simulations of aeropass maneuvers: Magellan, Galileo, Mars Global Surveyor