Thermodynamic and Transport Properties of Martian Atmosphere for Space Entry Application

Abstract

This contribution presents the thermodynamic and transport properties of a Martian atmosphere gas mixture up to 15 000 K, assuming that the plasma is in local thermodynamic equilibrium. The thermodynamic properties of individual species are computed using a semi-classical statistical mechanics formulation based upon the rigid rotator and harmonic oscillator model. The transport coecients are obtained by means of the perturbative Chapman-Enskog method. The collision integrals are collected from the literature or determined from suitable potential energy curves. Computed thermodynamic and transport properties are compared with numerical results available in the literature. It is found that approximate mixture rules based upon pure species data to compute transport properties are not accurate.