Simulating Rocket Plumes to Stick the Landing on Mars

With the Mars 2020 mission underway, a separate effort is using simulations to understand landing dynamics for tomorrow's missions. Researchers from the University of Michigan  are working on high-powered computer simulations that model the particles set in motion by rocket thruster-powered landings. Particles disturbed by the landing spacecraft's rocket plumes can obscure the landing zone, and also damage the craft or other nearby equipment. Jesse Capecelatro, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, hopes the findings of their study on rocket plume-surface interactions will give NASA a better idea of what will happen when a spacecraft attempts to land. The Mars 2020 Perseverance is scheduled to land on Feb. 18, 2021.

Transcript

00:00:00 That's one. Contact [music] CAPECELATRO>> As the spacecraft's coming down towards the planet or towards the lunar surface you essentially have these, these rocket engine exhausts that is now interacting with with the surface of that planet or moon. NARRATOR>> It's important for researchers like Jesse and his students to understand how thrusters disrupt surface materials in such a way that could affect landing or damage the spacecraft. CAPECELATRO>> Trying to understand what is the crater depth, what is the crater size, what is the objective is almost entirely being based off of Apollo era data.

00:00:43 That data is, is fairly outdated by now but also you can't simply translate what happened on the moon to uh, to Mars. If you want to do accurate, predictive modeling we really need to do simulations that, um that are running today on some of the biggest super computers, and so the idea is run these these very kind of smaller scale but higher resolution calculations and then upscale it, develop models from that, learn from that, and develop models that NASA can use in their code and that can actually stimulate a full landing site. We have to get to the bottom of understanding plume surface interactions.

00:01:25 It's one of the key challenges that's associated with this and these challenges are only getting, becoming amplified as we move towards manned missions, and so in order to be able to do this we have to rely on numerical stimulation. NASA has recognized room surface interactions is not something that's just going to plague one individual mission, it's really, um going to be something they have to deal with for at least all the missions they have planned in the next 20 years. [music]

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