Conceptual Study of a Small-Sized Mars Aerocapture Demonstrator

System analysis of a small-sized, low-cost, and quickly-manufactured Martian aerocapture demonstrator was conducted and a conceptual design was presented. Aerocapture corridor was first searched for by use of lifting aeroshells, and the primary design parameters as well as the aerocapture nominal trajectory were determined. Based on the primary design parameters, the aerodynamic shape of the aeroshell and the configuration of the thermal protection system were designed. Bus subsystem components were designed as well. Aerodynamic coefficients were updated by use of the computational-fluid-dynamics and the wind-tunnel measurement. The overall system design was performed with stepwise refinement. Finally, validity of the system design was examined in terms of the orbit insertion success rate by means of six-degree-of-freedom Monte-Carlo dynamic calculations of the spacecraft.