<div>Mission designs have been focused on using proven orbital maneuvers (i.e., propulsive maneuvers and gravity-assist) to deliver spacecraft to planetary destinations. Aeroassist maneuvers, despite their potential benefits, have not been given serious considerations due to the perceived risk and complexity. As entry technologies mature, aeroassist maneuvers need to be considered more extensively. Currently, there is no tool available that can perform rapid preliminary mission designs using aeroassist maneuvers. In this dissertation, integrated design methodologies for aerocapture and aerogravity-assist are developed, which can be readily converted to design tools that enable rapid mission concept formulations. </div><div> </div><div>The aerocapture design methodology is used to develop extensive design rules and relations for aerocapture missions to Titan, Venus, and Uranus, considering a wide range of vehicle parameters and interplanetary trajectories. These design rules and relations are intended as a convenient resource for mission designers and system engineers to evaluate the feasibility of aerocapture (e.g., effects of V-infinity on aerocapture missions) and the relevant design requirements, such as choices for vehicle characteristics and TPS materials. In addition, potentials for inclination change for Titan aerocapture are also quantified, presenting additional benefits of using aerocapture. Given the unusual orientation of Uranus, the changes in inclination and shift of line of apsides are also quantified for Uranus aerocapture. </div><div> </div><div>A novel design methodology is developed for Saturn system missions using nontraditional aerogravity-assist maneuvers at Titan. Compared with the existing literature, the novel methodology explores a comprehensive design space by integrating design considerations for interplanetary trajectories, atmospheric trajectories, arrival geometries at Titan, and vehicle designs. The methodology enables preliminary design trades and allows the mission designer to assess the feasibility of Titan aerogravity-assist and quickly develop requirements for trajectory designs and vehicle designs. The methodology also identifies potential Saturn and Titan arrival conditions. Results for an example Enceladus mission and Saturn system mission are presented, showing that a Saturn arrival V-infinity of 7 km/s renders Titan aerogravity-assist feasible for an Enceladus mission, while using the current entry technology. </div><div> </div><div>Bank modulation and drag modulation have been considered separately for aeroassist vehicles in the literature. The investigation combines bank modulation and drag modulation to improve the control authorities for aeroassist vehicles and such improvements are quantified using numerical simulations for a wide range of vehicle design configurations. The results show the potential of using a low-L/D vehicle for aerocapture at Uranus using combined bank and drag modulation. </div><div><br></div>

<p>Aerocapture has been envisioned as a potential orbit insertion technique for planetary destinations with an atmosphere. Despite not being flight proven technique, many studies found in the literature and recent mission proposals have employed aerocapture into their respective mission designs. The potential varying levels of trajectory dispersions experienced during atmospheric flight at each destination drives the need for robust and fuel-efficient guidance and control solutions. Existing guidance algorithms have relied on tracking precomputed reference trajectories, which are computed using significant simplifications to the flight mechanics, are not generally designed to be fuel-efficient, and require tedious performance gain tuning. When simulated with higher levels of uncertainty, the existing algorithms have been shown to produce large orbit insertion errors. Furthermore, existing flight control methodologies have been limited in scope to bank angle modulation. While some studies have introduced new methodologies, such as drag modulation and direct force control, they haven’t been tested at the same level of rigor as the existing methods. Advances in on-board computational power are allowing for modern guidance and control solutions, in the form of numerical predictor-corrector algorithms, to be realized. This dissertation presents an aerocapture guidance architecture based on a numerical predictor-corrector algorithm. Optimal control theory is utilized to formulate and numerically obtain fuel-minimizing flight control laws for lifting and ballistic vehicles. The unified control laws are integrated into a common guidance algorithm. The architecture is utilized to conduct Monte Carlo simulation studies of Discovery-class and SmallSat-class aerocapture missions at various planetary destinations.</p>

Aerocapture offers a near propellantless and quick method of orbit insertion at atmosphere bearing planetary destinations. Compared to conventional propulsive insertion, the primary advantage of using aerocapture is the savings in propellant mass which could be used to accommodate more useful payload. To protect the spacecraft from the aerodynamic heating during the maneuver, the spacecraft must be enclosed in a protective aeroshell or deployable drag device which also provides aerodynamic control authority to target the desired conditions at atmospheric exit. For inner planets such as Mars and Venus, aerocapture offers a very attractive option for inserting small satellites or constellations into very low circular orbits such as those used for imaging or radar observations. The large amount of propellant required for orbit insertion at outer planets such as Uranus and Neptune severely limits the useful payload mass that can delivered to orbit as well as the achievable flight time. For outer planet missions, aerocapture opens up an entirely new class of short time of flight trajectories which are infeasible with propulsive insertion. A systems framework for rapid conceptual design of aerocapture missions considering the interdependencies between various elements such as interplanetary trajectory and vehicle control performance for aerocapture is presented. The framework provides a step-by-step procedure to formulate an aerocapture mission starting from a set of mission objectives. At the core of the framework is the ``aerocapture feasibility chart", a graphical method to visualize the various constraints arising from control authority requirement, peak deceleration, stagnation-point peak heat rate, and total heat load as a function of vehicle aerodynamic performance and interplanetary arrival conditions. Aerocapture feasibility charts have been compiled for all atmosphere-bearing Solar System destinations for both lift and drag modulation control techniques. The framework is illustrated by its application to conceptual design of a Venus small satellite mission and a Flagship-class Neptune mission using heritage blunt-body aeroshells. The framework is implemented in the Aerocapture Mission Analysis Tool (AMAT), a free and open-source Python package, to enable scientists and mission designers perform rapid conceptual design of aerocapture missions. AMAT can also be used for rapid Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) studies for atmospheric probes and landers at any atmosphere-bearing destination.