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Center for Planetary Atmospheric Flight Sciences |
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 Director: Prof. Robert Tolson, North Carolina State University
The Center for Planetary Atmospheric Flight Sciences brings together a multidisciplinary team of academic, NIA and NASA researchers to improve and leverage the interactions between mission designers, flight systems engineers, atmospheric modelers, and ground and flight experimentalist. The goals of this collaborative activity include
- improving the performance of future planetary robotic missions and human missions returning from the Moon or Mars and
- educating the next generation of aerospace space flight and atmospheric flight engineers.
Research covers all mission phases from pre-flight design, through flight operations and post flight data analysis. Particular emphasis is on missions involving aero-assisted flight phases including aerobraking, aerocapture and/or entry, descent and landing (EDL). Pre-flight design studies of the aeroassist phase of a mission include evaluation of guidance and control, thermal protection, and other flight systems under various uncertainties. The largest uncertainty in often atmospheric properties, hence the parallel focus on improving atmospheric models. Pre-flight studies also involve analyzing experimental data to develop the aerodynamic data base for the flight. Flight operations for EDL and aerocapture missions is in a “listen only” mode because these phases are completely autonomous. On the other hand, aerobraking, with hundreds of atmospheric passes, requires daily monitoring to make orbit changes to adjust for unexpected atmospheric phenomena. Post flight analysis for all missions is based on onboard data taken during the aero-assist phase. Studies using these data include evaluation of vehicle flight system performance, stability and control, aerodynamic database evaluation, and trajectory and atmospheric reconstruction.
Improvements in atmospheric modeling for flights to Mars are being carried out through collaborative activities with the University of Michigan, the Southwest Research Institute, Virginia Tech, and the Northwest Research Institute. These activities will result in improved atmospheric density and wind predictions for future aero-assist missions. Research is also underway using CFD physics based uncertainty methods to quantify atmospheric modeling errors. Pre-flight simulations are validated using post flight analysis of data from all prior Mars missions to verify aerodynamic, aerothermodynamic, navigation, and atmospheric model performance.
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