Investigation of Dust-Induced Surface Erosion During Martian Planetary Entries

Large, global dust storms that periodically form in the Martian atmosphere pose a threat to NASA missions due to a lack of understanding of how they will affect the vehicle’s thermal protection system. The current work utilizes the Dust Simulation and Tracking (DUST) library, which is a Lagrangian particle solver under development at NASA Ames Research Center. Using the DUST library in conjunction with the US3D Navier–Stokes solver, two studies are performed. First, a sensitivity study is performed to determine the influence of the underlying dust modeling (drag coefficient, Nusselt number, and size distribution) on the surface erosion through a hypersonic Martian entry trajectory. The surface erosion was found to be insensitive to the drag and heating models but was affected significantly by the size distribution. The total recession was comparable to the predicted thermochemical ablation, but the lack of a relevant erosion model limits the predictive capability of the current work. Next, a hypersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator concept is investigated, which is a potential future design for Martian entries. Despite using a particle-damage model that likely overpredicts the estimated particle-induced erosion, it is very unlikely that a Martian dust storm poses a significant risk for a hypersonic inflatable entry.