The aeroheating environments to vehicles undergoing Mars aerocapture, earth aerocapture from Mars, and earth aerocapture from the moon are presented. An engineering approach for the analysis of various types of vehicles and trajectories was taken, rather than performing a benchmark computation for a specific point at a selected time point in a trajectory. The radiation into Mars using the Mars Rover Sample Return (MRSR) 2-ft nose radius bionic remains a small contributor of heating for 6 to 10 km/sec; however, at 12 km/sec it becomes comparable with the convection. For earth aerocapture, returning from Mars, peak radiation for the MRSR SRC is only 25 percent of the peak convection for the 12-km/sec trajectory. However, when large vehicles are considered with this trajectory, peak radiation can become 2 to 4 times higher than the peak convection. For both Mars entry and return, a partially ablative Thermal Protection System (TPS) would be required, but for Lunar Transfer Vehicle return an all-reusable TPS can be used.


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    Title :

    Aerothermodynamic environments for Mars entry, Mars return, and lunar return aerobraking missions


    Contributors:

    Publication date :

    1990-06-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English







    Earth aerobraking strategies for manned return from Mars

    BRAUN, ROBERT / POWELL, RICHARD | AIAA | 1991


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