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Soumyo Dutta

Publications and source records attributed to Soumyo Dutta.

At least 109 records · Page 6
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Comparison and Analysis of the Venus Global Reference Atmospheric Model

The goal of this research was to analyze the Venus Global Reference Atmospheric Model (Venus-GRAM) and determine how accurately the model is following its primary source data from the Venus International Reference Atmosphere (VIRA). A comparative analysis between Venus-GRAM and the Venus Climate Database (VCD) was also conducted. The VCD is an atmospheric model developed by the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD) for both scientific and engineering purposes. The purpose of this work is to ensure the most up-to-date data is being used to prepare for future probe and aerocapture missions.

Libby Cutler↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Efficient and Accurate Terrain Integration & Application to Modeling and Simulation of Planetary Landing Systems

As planetary spacecraft landing system complexity increases, pre-flight performance assessments include correspondingly more detailed and complex models that represent the various environmental elements and vehicle subsystems. Specifically, the relevance and criticality of planetary terrain modeling in the context of precision landing and hazard avoidance (PL&HA) has become evident as both commercial and national agencies return to the Lunar surface and beyond.

Terrain↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Results from the Helicopter Drop Test of the DAVINCI Descent Sphere

This paper summarizes the October 2023 helicopter drop test of the descent sphere of the upcoming Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging mission to Venus. The drop test met its primary objectives of recording acceleration, attitude rates, and camera data during the 30-second descent at Utah Test and Training Range. The recorded inertial measurement unit and global position sensor receiver data has allowed a six degree-of-freedom reconstruction of the vehicle position, velocity, attitude, and attitude rates, as well as derived aerodynamic coefficients. Initial comparisons show good agreement between the reconstruction and the pre-flight models of the descent sphere being used by the Venus mission. The reconstructed aerodynamic coefficients from the drop test can inform updates to the aerodynamic model to be used for the actual Venus mission.

Soumyo Dutta↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Results from the Helicopter Drop Test of the DAVINCI Descent Sphere

This paper summarizes the October 2023 helicopter drop test of the descent sphere of the upcoming Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging mission to Venus. The drop test met its primary objectives of recording acceleration, attitude rates, and camera data during the 30-second descent at Utah Test and Training Range. The recorded inertial measurement unit and global position sensor receiver data has allowed a six degree-of-freedom reconstruction of the vehicle position, velocity, attitude, and attitude rates, as well as derived aerodynamic coefficients. Initial comparisons show good agreement between the reconstruction and the pre-flight models of the descent sphere being used by the Venus mission. The reconstructed aerodynamic coefficients from the drop test can inform updates to the aerodynamic model to be used for the actual Venus mission.

Soumyo Dutta↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Performance Analysis of Magnetohydrodynamic Drag Modulation for Actively Controlled Aerocapture at Neptune

Missions to the Ice Giants are a top priority for flagship missions this coming decade. However, a fully propulsive orbital insertion into these planets requires an immense amount of fuel, taking a significant portion of the spacecraft mass and restricting the scientific payload. To mitigate this, aerocapture has been heavily investigated. Although simulations have shown that aerodynamically controlled aerocapture can successfully insert into an orbit around both Ice Giants, the deep atmospheric pass required necessitates a complex, mass expensive, and sometimes prohibitive thermal protection system. Magnetohydrodynamic drag modulation serves as a potential alternative control method for aerocapture which could not only save propellant mass compared to fully propulsive orbital insertion, but also save thermal protection system mass compared to conventional aerocapture methods. Both aerodynamically controlled and magnetohydrodynamically controlled aerocapture methodologies were simulated in NASA Langley’s high-fidelity six degree-of-freedom flight dynamics code, the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II. Each method was simulated to identical missions to Neptune using a numerical predictor-corrector algorithm to optimize the control towards the target orbit. The results concluded that magnetohydrodynamic drag modulation can successfully capture and performs on par with aerodynamic drag modulation while significantly reducing the heatflux and aeroshell complexity.

Danny N Nguyen↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator Earth-based Applications

Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators technology has been developed by NASA to enable challenging entry, descent, and landing missions at various planetary destinations. In the last two decades, HIAD technology has been developed through a series of ground tests and flight tests, culminating in the 2022 Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator flight demonstration of a 6 m diameter vehicle from orbital velocities. Past studies have considered application of HIAD for human-scale missions, especially return from the Moon or human-class missions to Mars. However, recent commercial interest in the HIAD technology following LOFTID’s success shows HIAD applications are possible for cislunar return, Earth aerocapture, return from low Earth orbit, and even launch vehicle component recovery. This paper describes the flight performance range for these new, Earth-based applications.

Soumyo Dutta↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Design Considerations for Aerocapture Delivery of Uranus Orbiter and Probe

This paper presents an aerocapture system design for delivering the Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP) subsystems to their science orbit using the Mars Science Laboratory architecture. A packaging and integration scheme are presented for UOP subsystems, with careful consideration of large components required for outer planet science missions (RTG power generation, RF communications). The implication of packaging multiple RTG’s inside an aeroshell during a multiple year cruise phase will be explained, with possible thermal design solutions to mitigate RTG waste heat analyzed. Mass properties and margins for the system are discussed and an overall mass risk assessment is presented for the entry system and total flight system at launch. Alternative vehicle configurations are explored to include multiple probes and enable science objectives during transit to Uranus. Aerocapture mass savings when compared to the baseline UOP design are presented.

Andrew J. Gomez-Delrio↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

6-DoF Uranus Aerocapture Trajectory Analysis

The Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission has been identified as the highest priority flagship mission for this decade. Delays in launch opportunities may make existing fully-propulsive orbit insertion mission types unfeasible. Aerocapture can potentially alleviate these challenges while providing a solution flexible to different launch opportunities. While the space technology that aerocapture leverages have been flight-proven, aerocapture as-a-whole has not been formally demonstrated. This paper presents a novel 6-DoF aerocapture trajectory analysis applied to Uranus. The paper presents the 6-DoF simulation framework, inspired from Mars Science Laboratory. Trajectory comparisons, including Monte Carlo simulations, to existing 3-DoF solutions are presented to understand the information learned from increasing the modeling level-of-fidelity.

Rohan G Deshmukh↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Onboard Navigation Error Analysis for Aerocapture at Uranus

Capturing into an orbit around Uranus using aerocapture allows one to design a mission with faster interplanetary trajectories and less propellant requirements. Such an aerocapture mission would rely on the onboard Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) subsystems to successfully capture into an orbit around Uranus. Uncertainty in the state information and the noise in the sensor measurements induce navigation errors in the guidance and control subsystems, which can affect the overall performance of the aerocapture mission at Uranus. Understanding the effect of these navigation errors on mission performance is essential. To this end, this work considers different sensors with varying quality to understand their impact on the overall mission performance. In addition, this paper studies the impact of the uncertainty in the initial states used to initialize the onboard navigation filter and understands their effect on mission performance. This paper also shows the onboard navigation errors obtained from the Linear Covariance (LinCov) analysis and uses them for verification and validation (V&V) of the results from Program to Optimize and Simulate Trajectories-II (POST2).

Pardha Sai Chadalavada↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

OSIRIS-REx Entry, Descent, and Landing Performance

The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) was the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers program. OSIRIS-REx launched out of Cape Canaveral, Florida on September 8, 2016, with a science goal to return a minimum of 60 g of a primitive asteroid’s surface, specifically the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. The sample return capsule (SRC) successfully touched down at UTTR on the morning of September 24, 2023. The entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sequence had an off-nominal deployment of the parachute, but the spacecraft safely landed within the pre-flight prediction of the landing ellipse and the payload was safely recovered. This paper discusses the pre-flight EDL modeling and simulation and focus on predictions for EDL operations. Flight observations such as timeline are compared to the predicted timeline produced by the EDL simulation.

EDL↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Comparative Performance of Entry Simulations using Guided Human-Scale Landers at Mars

There has been ongoing interest in human exploration of Mars since the 1970s. Most studies to date have investigated moderate lift-to-drag ratio vehicles to investigate this problem. This paper considers the development and cross-simulation comparison of a slender-bodied, moderate lift-to-drag human-scale lander vehicle for Mars. The vehicle employs the Fully Numerical Predictor-corrector Entry Guidance to target a powered descent state, subsequently leveraging Fractional Polynomial Powered Descent Guidance laws to reach the desired touchdown target. Differences in simulation environment as well as nominal trajectory results are shared.

Evan Roelke↗