(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016-02-29)
Blette, David J.
This paper investigates types of supersonic vehicle configuration transition events nec essary to initiation supersonic retropropulsion as part of human-class Mars entry, descent,
and landing. This research assumes an entry vehicle with a 105 mT entry mass and an
ellipsled aeroshell similar to the NASA EDL Design Reference Architecture 5.0. All entry
architectures are assumed all-propulsive. Three transition architectures are considered: a
pitch-around maneuver, an aeroshell front-exit, and an aeroshell hinged-exit. Propulsive
subsystem thrust requirements are defined for the pitch-around maneuver. For transitions
involving solid mass ejections, debris flight envelopes are determined and compared to a
descent vehicle trajectory under a modified gravity turn. It is shown that far-field recon tact risks exist for the proposed architectures involving solid mass ejections and recontact
mitigation schemes are required.