Significance of Nonequilibrium Surface Interactions in Stardust Return Capsule Ablation Modeling

Abstract

The gas-surface modeling of high-density materials exposed to high-pressure atmospheric reentry conditions was extended to include low-density materials interacting with low-pressure atmospheric conditions. The fully implicit ablation thermal response code and multicomponent ablation thermochemistry program were extended to include nonequilibrium surface conditions for the Stardust return capsule. The Stardust return capsule reentered Earth's atmosphere experiencing low pressure and had a low-density heat shield material. The material response of the Stardust return capsule was previously only modeled with surface equilibrium. Validation against Stardust reentry flight data showed that the equilibrium assumption led to an overprediction of recession and that the inclusion of nonequilibrium reduced the overprediction of this parameter. Incorporating the Park finite rate model nonequilibrium surface conditions led to a reduction in the calculated value of recession at the stagnation point from 1.12 to 0.72 cm in a nominal simulation ofthe Stardust return capsule. The nonequilibrium recession was closer to the measured recession of 0.65 cm. Incorporating nonequilibrium conditions also decreased the calculated total heat load from 28 to 19 kJ/cm 2 . The improved material response method is applicable to a range of reentries, including future missions such as the Orion crew exploration vehicle.