Advanced Thermochemical Non-equilibrium Modeling of Hypersonic Entry in Titan Atmosphere

With the aim of landing on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, to explore and study the environment, a critical phase remains the capsule entry in the atmosphere. The high temperatures reached in the bow shock during the descent lead to the development of non-equilibrium phenomena. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations require specific models to account for thermochemical non-equilibrium such as the implemented multi-temperature (mT) and state-to-state (StS) approaches. Aim of the present work is to demonstrate the main footsteps for the verification of a detailed thermochemical model for non-equilibrium entry flow simulations in Titan’s atmosphere by reproducing a reference case. Literature multi-temperature models proposed by Park and Nelson are implemented and adopted for the simulations. Ionization effects in the flow, together with the influence of the catalytic wall are estimated through different simulations. Finally, the in-house developed state-to-state model is compared with multi-temperature simulations.