Mars 2020 Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation (MEDLI2)

Quantifying the thermal response of a heat shield is a key step in the design of a spacecraft to ensure its survivability during atmospheric entry. Recession and swelling of the thermal protection material have a drastic effect on both the heat transfer within the vehicle and aerothermodynamic transients. Post flight analysis of reentry can be achieved after recovery on Earth, but it is more difficult for entries on other bodies of the solar system. A dedicated instrumentation is necessary to understand the evolution of the thermal protection material thickness during flight. This paper investigates the current limitations of the available measurement techniques. A low-mass passive solution is proposed to measure with high accuracy the phenomena of recession, also valid for materials only subject to sublimation such as polytetrafluoroethylene, and swelling. The QARMAN CubeSat mission provides a flight opportunity to develop a dedicated payload to quantify the recession and swelling of an

Section: Thermocouple-based Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonintrusive Instrument for Thermal Protection System to Measure Recession and Swelling

Bailet

Denis

Bourgoing

et al. 2022

“…The heatshield of the entry capsule Mars 2020 is equipped with an instrumentation package called Mars Entry Descent and Landing Instrumentation 2 (MEDLI2) [8]. The package incorporates a radiometer (Model 22160-22KS from ©Medtherm Corporation) located at the backshell to measure radiation during Mars entry.…”

Section: Gardon Gauge (Mars 2020)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Passive Method to Measure Reentry Radiation in the Presence of Ablative Products

Bailet

Denis

Bourgoing

et al. 2021

Reentry radiation is one of the key phenomena to take in account while designing an EDL phase for sample return and some gas/ice giants' missions. In the case of an ablative Thermal Protective System (TPS), the physico-chemical processes involved produce a large amount of dust and phenolic gases that can obstruct the optical path. The QARMAN mission (5.2 kg CubeSat launched in December 2019) gave a low-cost opportunity to develop a dedicated payload named INES (Imbedded Nano-platform-size Emission Spectrometer) to study the radiation of a reentry plasma in the presence of an ablative heatshield (Cork P50 from Amorim). The payload is able to measure both radiation and thickness evolution of the TPS at the same location. The paper presents a passive method to prevent any contamination of

“…Another MEDLI-like system of instruments is planned to be flown on the Mars 2020 mission. This instrumentation system, known as MEDLI2, 38 will acquire FADS pressure data to be used for the reconstruction of atmospheric states and vehicle aerodynamics during entry. The focus of the pressure system on MEDLI2 is geared toward estimating aerodynamics in the supersonic regime of flight, where some questions remain regarding the aerodynamic reconstruction of MSL.…”

Section: Application To the Mars 2020 Missionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planetary Probe Entry Atmosphere Estimation Using Synthetic Air Data System

Karlgaard

Schoenenberger

2018

This paper develops an atmospheric state estimator based on inertial acceleration and angular rate measurements combined with an assumed vehicle aerodynamic model. The approach utilizes the full navigation state of the vehicle (position, velocity, and attitude) to recast the vehicle aerodynamic model to be a function solely of the atmospheric state (density, pressure, and winds). Force and moment measurements are based on vehicle sensed accelerations and angular rates. These measurements are combined with an aerodynamic model and a Kalman-Schmidt filter to estimate the atmospheric conditions. The new method is applied to data from the Mars Science Laboratory mission, which landed the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars in August 2012. The results of the new estimation algorithm are compared with results from a Flush Air Data Sensing algorithm based on onboard pressure measurements on the vehicle forebody. The comparison indicates that the new proposed estimation method provides estimates consistent with the air data measurements, without the use of pressure measurements. Implications for future missions such as the Mars 2020 entry capsule are described.