Planetary flyby

Abstract: Scientific measurements of atmospheric properties have been made by a wide variety of planetary flyby missions, orbiters, and landers. Although landers can make in-situ observations of near-surface atmospheric conditions (and can collect atmospheric data during their entry phase), the vast majority of data on planetary atmospheres has been collected by remote sensing techniques from flyby and orbiter spacecraft (and to some extent by Earth-based remote sensing). Many of these remote sensing observations (made over a variety of spectral ranges), consist of vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature as a function of atmospheric pressure level. While these measurements are of great interest to atmospheric scientists and modelers of planetary atmospheres, the primary interest for engineers designing entry descent and landing (EDL) systems is information about atmospheric density as a function of geometric altitude. Fortunately, as described in in this paper, it is possible to use a combination of the gas-law relation and the hydrostatic balance relation to convert temperature-versus-pressure, scientific observations into density-versus-altitude data for use in engineering applications. The following section provides a brief introduction to atmospheric thermodynamics, as well as constituents, and winds for EDL. It also gives methodology for using atmospheric information to do "back-of-the-envelope" calculations of various EDL aeroheating parameters, including peak deceleration rate ("g-load"), peak convective heat rate. and total heat load on EDL spacecraft thermal protection systems. Brief information is also provided about atmospheric variations and perturbations for EDL guidance and control issues, and atmospheric issues for EDL parachute systems. Subsequent sections give details of the atmospheric environments for five destinations for possible EDL missions: Venus. Earth. Mars, Saturn, and Titan. Specific atmospheric information is provided for these destinations, and example results are presented for the "back-of-the-envelope" calculations mentioned above.

Abstract: There has been considerable interest in the amplitude and phase fluctuations of the radio signal received from a flyby spacecraft during occultation by a planetary atmosphere. For planetary flyby missions, the Fresnel-zone size exceeds the outer scale size of turbulence, and existing formulations for the frequency spectra of the amplitude and phase fluctuations are inadequate because they do not account for the inhomogeneity of the turbulence in the direction transverse to the propagation path. In this paper, the formulation is given for the correlation functions for the log-amplitude and phase fluctuations of both spherical and plane waves propagating in a turbulent medium whose correlation function for refractive index fluctuations is described by the product of a function of the average coordinate and a function of the difference coordinate. The results are applied to radio occultation of a flyby space probe by the atmosphere of Venus, assuming that the turbulence in the atmosphere exists as a layer, that it is localized, isotropic, and smoothly varying, and that the localized turbulence is described by the Kolmogorov spectrum. Closed-form solutions for both variances and frequency spectra of the log-amplitude and phase fluctuations are obtained using Rytov's method, and it is seen that the shape of the frequency spectra depends a great deal on the characteristics and extent of the turbulence.

Abstract: A combination of multiple gravity-assist and impulsive Delta-V maneuvers is often required for interplanetary and interstellar space missions, such as NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, and Cassini missions. The design of such complex interplanetary missions is difficult with traditional mission analysis techniques because the mission must be prepruned to determine potential trajectories. Prepruning has been necessary because these mission often require the optimization of dozens of variables in a highly nonlinear and discontinuous design space. This process risks pruning nonintuitive solutions, which may potentially contain the optimal trajectory. In this paper, a hybrid optimization algorithm that is capable of determining optimal interplanetary trajectories, including the number of gravity assists and the planetary flyby order, is developed. The hybrid optimization algorithm uses a stochastic genetic algorithm to globally search the design space, as well as traditional nonlinear programming gradient-base...

Abstract: Analytical models are defined for gravity-assist trajectory changes for spacecraft passing massive compact bodies. The models are applied in an examination of the benefits of lowering a tether to an asteroid during a flyby in order to gain a trajectory change equivalent to that from a massive body (planet). Direct flybys yield velocity gains while retrograde flybys shed velocity. The magnitude of the effects are a function of the proximity to the body during flyby. This inherently limits the gravity assist technique used around planets, which usually have atmospheres and can have intense radiation fields. If a spacecraft could extend a tether (such as to be tested on the Orbiter) to snag on an asteroid surface, the potential trajectory/velocity change of the spacecraft would be limited mainly by the tether strength. The encounter physics are treated as a soft collision. Possible applications of the asteroid tether technique are outer planet, Mars and main belt asteroid exploration missions.