Re-Entry Systems

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IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Due to the large influx of students, the course is only open to students from the following profiles:

SPACEFLIGHT DYNAMICS

STRUCTURES FOR SPACE

Enrollment is done by sending an email to the responsible instructor (e.mooij@tudelft.nl) with proof of your profile enrollment (screenshot is sufficient)

In case you are from another profile, you may gain admittance (capacity permitting) by sending a motivation to the responsible instructor.

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The course aims at giving a complete overview of re-entry systems, mainly from a mission point of view, but also from the system point of view. To begin with the mission, the fundamental principles of mechanics (Newton's Laws) are applied to derive the equations of motion for translational and rotational motion. Subsequently, simplifications are applied to give a description of planar ballistic, gliding and skipping flight, where the focus will be on analytical solutions for quantifying maximum mechanical and thermal loads. Next, typical mission applications, such as planetary entry and descent with parachutes and/or propulsion systems are discussed, as well as terminal-area flight of winged entry vehicles.

Special topics (not covered each year):

To extend the mission applications, attention is also paid to the atmospheric flight aspects during an aero-gravity assist, aerocapture and aerobraking. As many re-entry missions rely on the application of guidance, navigation and control systems, the fundamentals of each of these three sub-systems will be discussed and applied in simple examples, such that after the course the student has a starting point for further study. The relation between vehicle configurations (capsule, winged, lifting body, etc.) and mission aspects, such as flight time and (maximum) system loads is a typical system aspect that will pass review. Finally, all presented theory will be combined in a so-called development plan for building a simulator that can be used for performance analysis of both controlled and uncontrolled re-entry vehicles. How to use such a simulator efficiently is depending on what kind of simulation and analysis technique will be used. Therefore, the course is concluded with an overview of such techniques like Monte-Carlo Analysis, and how to extract the required information from the simulated data.Lecture Topics (the actual topics covered may vary per year):

#01 Introduction

#02 Entry Environment and Aeroheating

#03 Fundamentals of Motion

#04 Ballistic entry

#05 Gliding Entry

#06 Skip Entry

#07 Guidance, Navigation and Control

#08 Planetary Entry and Descent

#09 Advanced Descent and Landing Systems

#10 Terminal Area Energy Management