Entry Systems

Critical to the success of planetary probes is the ability of the vehicle to survive the planetary entry. The vehicle must remain stable in the correct orientation and be protected from aerodynamic heating.

Vorticity has a range of state-of-the-art tools and internally developed models to perform sizing and detailed definition of space vehicle entry. These tools provide the capability for dynamics and trajectory analyses, aerodynamic predictions using Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), classical computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and fluid-structure interaction (FSI) methods and assessment of aerodynamic heating, thermal protection sizing and ablation prediction. Vorticity has conducted a range of studies of entry probes for ESA and inflatable aerocapture devices for NASA.

Entry Systems Case Studies

ESA – Alternative Descent and Landing Systems
NASA – Mars Aerocapture
SSTL / ESA – Earth Re-entry Vehicle Demonstrator Pre-Phase A
ESA – Airbags for Small Landers
ESA – Parachute Deployment Device
ESA – Deployable and Inflatable Heatshield and Hypersonic Decelerator
Concepts – Phase 1
ESA – Aerothermodynamics Tools for Inflatable Hypersonic Decelerators
ESA/Thales Alenia Space – ExoMars RSP
ESA/Thales Alenia Space – ExoMars 2016