Experimental and Numerical Assessment of Aerothermal Environments About Jupiter Trojan Sample Return Capsule

Sample return from asteroids and comets beyond the main belt is considered to be one of the most worthwhile future deep space missions [1]. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is currently entertaining a Jupiter Trojan sample return mission using a solar power sail [2], following the heritage of the Hayabusa sample return mission [3]. Because of high orbital energy corresponding to outer bodies, a sample return capsule (SRC) for such a future mission is expected to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere at velocities higher than 14 km/s and, hence, to encounter much severer aerodynamic heating environments than those of any past SRCs. Especially, the radiative heat transfer is considered to play a significant role in heat transfer processes in the shock layer, since the radiative heat transfer exponentially increases with the atmospheric flight velocity. To optimize the aerothermal design of the SRC and to minimize the mass of the thermal protection system (TPS) equipped with the SRC aeroshell, it is essentially required to accurately predict the aerothermal environments around the SRC along the reentry trajectory.