During planetary entry, a vehicle uses drag generated from flight through the planetary atmosphere to decelerate from hyperbolic or orbital velocity. To date, all guided entry systems have utilized lift-modulation trajectory control. Deployable aerodynamic devices enable drag-modulation trajectory control, where a vehicle controls its energy and range during entry by varying drag area. Implementation of conventional lift-modulation systems is challenging for deployable systems. In contrast, drag-modulation trajectory control may be simpler and lower-cost than current state-of-the-art lift-modulation systems. In this investigation, a survey of analytical methods for computing planetary entry trajectories is presented and the approximate analytical solution to the entry equations of motion originally developed by Allen and Eggers is extended to enable flight performance evaluation of drag-modulation trajectory control systems. Results indicate that significant range control authority is available for vehicles with modestly sized decelerators. The extended Allen-Eggers solution is closed-form and enables rapid evaluation of nonlifting entry trajectories. The solution is utilized to develop analytical relationships for discrete-event drag-modulation systems. These relationships have direct application to onboard guidance and targeting systems. Numerical techniques were used to evaluate drag-modulation trajectory control for precision landing and planetary aerocapture missions, including development of prototype real-time guidance and targeting algorithms. Results show that simple, discrete-event drag-modulation trajectory control systems can provide landed accuracies competitive with the current state of the art and a more benign aerothermal environment during entry for robotic-scale exploration missions. For aerocapture, drag-modulation trajectory control is shown to be feasible for missions to Mars and Titan and the required delta-V for periapsis raise is insensitive to the particular method of drag modulation. Overall, results indicate that drag-modulation trajectory control is feasible for a subset of planetary entry and aerocapture missions. To facilitate intelligent system selection, a method is proposed for comparing lift and drag-modulation trajectory control schemes. This method applies nonlinear variational techniques to closed-form analytical solutions of the equations of motion, generating closed-form expressions for variations of arbitrary order. This comparative method is quantitative, performance-based, addresses robustness, and applicable early in the design process. This method is applied to steep planetary entry trajectories and shows that, in general, lift and drag-modulation systems exhibit similar responses to perturbations in environmental and initial state perturbations. However, significant differences are present for aerodynamic perturbations and results demonstrate that drag systems may be more robust to uncertainty in aerodynamic parameters. Finally, the results of these contributions are combined to build a set of guidelines for selecting lift or drag-modulation for a Mars Science Laboratory-class planetary entry mission.

L’exploration des quatre planètes géantes gazeuses, Jupiter, Saturne, Neptune et Uranus, est importante pour comprendre l’évolution de notre système solaire et plus généralement de l’univers. Les sondes entrant dans l’atmosphère des géantes gazeuses ont des vitesses de 20 à 50 km/s, largement supérieures aux vitesses d’entrée atmosphérique sur les autres planètes du système solaire. Il s’agit d’un problème complexe car les conditions d’entrées sont brutales et les vitesses associées dépassent largement les capacités des installations d’essai au sol actuelles. Cette thèse examine la possibilité de simuler expérimentalement les conditions d’entrées proposées pour Uranus et Saturne à 22.3 et 26.9 km/s avec un tube d’expansion à piston libre. D’abord, la possibilité de simuler les conditions directement en recréant la vitesse d’entrée réelle a été étudiée. Il a été trouvé qu’il était possible de simuler l’entrée d’Uranus mais seulement avec de grandes incertitudes. Pour cette raison, il a été proposé d’utiliser une substitution du gaz d’essai établie, dans lequel soit le pourcentage d’hélium dans l’atmosphère H2/He est augmenté, soit l’hélium est remplacé par du néon, un gaz noble plus lourd. Cela permet de simuler uniquement les conditions postchoc des entrées. Théoriquement, il a été constaté que ces substitutions permettaient de simuler l’entrée Uranus ou Saturne, ce qui a été confirmé expérimentalement à l’aide d’hélium. Notant l’intérêt actuel d’envoyer des sondes d’entrée atmosphérique vers ces deux planètes, cette étude a démontré que les capacités expérimentales requises sont disponibles pour la réalisation d’expériences simulées avec les modèles d’essais. / Exploration of the four gas giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, is important for understanding the evolution of both our solar system and the greater universe. Due to their size, flight into the gas giants involves atmospheric entry velocities between 20 and 50 km/s. This is a complex issue because the entry conditions are harsh but the related velocities are mostly beyond the capabilities of current ground testing facilities. As such, this thesis examines the possibility of experimentally simulating proposed Uranus and Saturn entries at 22.3 and 26.9 km/s in a free piston driven expansion tube, the most powerful type of impulse wind tunnel. Initially, the possibility of simulating the conditions directly by re-creating the true flight velocity was investigated. It was found to be possible to simulate the 22.3 km/s Uranus entry, but not without large uncertainties in the test condition. For this reason, it was proposed to use an established test gas substitition where the percentage of helium in the H2/He atmosphere is increased, or the helium is substituted for the heavier noble gas neon. This allows just the post-shock conditions of the entries to be simulated. Theoretically it was found that these substitutions allowed both Uranus or Saturn entry to be simulated, which was confirmed experimentally using helium. Noting the current interest in sending atmospheric entry probes to both of these planets, this study has demonstrated that the required experimental capabilities are available for performing simulated experiments using test models.

A general multidisciplinary design problem features coupling and feedback between contributing analyses. This feedback may lead to convergence issues requiring significant iteration in order to obtain a feasible design. This work casts the multidisciplinary design problem as a dynamical system in order to leverage the benefits of dynamical systems theory in a new domain. Three areas from dynamical system theory are chosen for investigation: stability analysis, optimal control, and estimation theory. Stability analysis is used to investigate the existence of a solution to the design problem and how that solution can be found. Optimal control techniques allow consideration of contributing analysis output and design variables constraints at the same level of the optimization hierarchy. Finally, estimation methods are employed to rapidly evaluate the robustness of the multidisciplinary design. These three dynamical system techniques are then combined in a methodology for the rapid robust design of linear multidisciplinary systems. While inherently linear, the developed robust design methodology is shown to be extensible to nonlinear systems. The applicability and performance of the developed technique is demonstrated through linear and nonlinear test problems including the design of a hypersonic aerodynamic surface for a system in which an increase in range or improvement in landed accuracy is sought. In addition, it is shown that the developed robust design methodology scales well compared to other methods.

In the design of a thermal protection system for atmospheric entry, aerothermal heating presents a major impediment to efficient heat shield design. Recombination of atomic species in the boundary layer results in highly exothermic surface-catalyzed recombination reactions and an increase in the heat flux experienced at the surface. The degree to which these reactions increase the surface heat flux is partly a function of the heat shield material. Characterization of the catalytic behavior of these materials takes place in experimental facilities, however there is a dearth of detailed computational models for the fluid dynamic and chemical behavior of such facilities. A numerical model coupling finite rate chemical kinetics and high temperature thermodynamic and transport properties with a computational fluid dynamics flow solver has been developed to model the chemically reacting flow in the inductively coupled plasma torch facility at the University of Vermont. Simulations were performed modeling the plasma jet for hybrid oxygen-argon and nitrogen plasmas in order to validate the models developed in this work by comparison to experimentally-obtained data for temperature and relative species concentrations in the boundary layer above test articles. Surface boundary conditions for wall temperature and catalytic efficiency were utilized to represent the different test article materials used in the experimental facility. Good agreement between measured and computed data is observed. In addition, a code-to-code validation exercise was performed benchmarking the performance of the models developed in this dissertation by comparison to previously published results. Results obtained show good agreement for boundary layer temperature and species concentrations despite significant differences in the codes. Lastly, a series of simulations were performed investigating the effects of recombination reaction rates and pressure on the composition of a nitrogen plasma jet in chemical nonequilibrium in order to better understand the composition at the boundary layer edge above a test article. Results from this study suggest that, for typical test conditions, the boundary layer edge will be in a state of chemical nonequilibrium, leading to a nonequilibrium condition across the entire boundary layer for test article materials with high catalytic efficiencies.

Supersonic deceleration has been identified as a critical deficiency in extending heritage technologies to the high-mass systems required to achieve long-term exploration goals at Mars. Supersonic retropropulsion (SRP), or the use of retropropulsive thrust while an entry vehicle is traveling at supersonic conditions, is an approach addressing this deficiency. The focus of this dissertation is aerodynamic and performance evaluation of SRP as a decelerator technology for high-mass Mars entry systems. This evaluation was completed through a detailed SRP performance analysis, establishment of the relationship between vehicle performance and the aerodynamic-propulsive interaction, and an assessment of the required fidelity and computational cost in simulating SRP flowfields, with emphasis on the effort required in conceptual design. Trajectory optimization, high-fidelity computational aerodynamic analysis, and analytical modeling of the SRP aerodynamic-propulsive interaction were used to define the fidelity and effort required to evaluate individual SRP concepts across multiple mission scales.