Supersonic retropropulsion, or the initiation of a retropropulsion phase at supersonic freestream conditions, is an enabling decelerator technology for high-mass planetary entries at Mars. The current knowledge on supersonic retropropulsion is largely derived from exploratory development efforts prior to the Viking missions in the 1960s and early 1970s, predominantly sub-scale wind tunnel testing. Little literature exists on analytical and computational modeling approaches for supersonic aerodynamic-propulsive interactions at moderate thrust levels and flight-relevant conditions. This investigation presents a discussion of the relevant flow physics to provide insight into the effectiveness of inviscid and viscous computational analysis approaches in consistently and accurately capturing the relevant flow physics. Preliminary computational results for a blunt body with two retropropulsion configurations are compared with experimental data for the location of prominent flow features and surface pressure distributions. This work is intended to provide an initial discussion of the challenges facing the computational simulation of supersonic retropropulsion flowfields.

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