Supersonic Vehicle Configuration Transitions to Enable Supersonic Retropropulsion during Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing
Author(s)
Blette, David J.
Braun, Robert D.
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Abstract
This paper investigates types of supersonic vehicle
configuration transition events necessary 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 recontact
risks exist for the proposed architectures involving solid mass
ejections and recontact mitigation schemes are required.
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Date
2016-03
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