| Customer: ESA/ESTEC | |
 | The main objective of this activity is to develop operational software for the prediction of heat fluxes for future Titan and high speed Earth entry missions. |
HPS, under contract to VKI, is responsible for the professional management of the activity as well as for the test planning, support for ablator material selection, the gas-surface interaction modelling and the Titan/Stardust entry evaluation based on the test results.
There is to be built an experimental and theoretical database to improved numerical capabilities, to established models for the relevant phenomena (ionization, thermo chemical non-equilibrium, radiation, ablation, catalysis) and to be rebuilt ground and flight experiments. There is developed operational software for the evaluation of radiative heat fluxes around future planter entry probes, with focus on Titan and Earth. The work is focused on physical modelling in CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) for high enthalpy N2-CH4 and air+ablation, verified and correlated via wind tunnel tests at VKI (B) and DLR-Cologne (D), which started in September 2009.
HPS, under contract to VKI, is responsible for the professional management of the activity as well as for the test planning, support for ablator material selection, the gas-surface interaction modelling and the Titan/Stardust entry evaluation based on the test results.
Further team partners are EPFL and ECP (CH), DLR-Göttingen (D) and University of Quebec (AUS).