Aeroshell Compared Design and Analysis for Mars Penetrators

In the frame of preliminary technological investigations for future European Mars landing probes, a study has been performed by Dassault under the supervision of ESTEC on potential thermal protection systems and aeroshell configurations for such penetrators.

After an extensive trade-off between numerous candidate architectures and technologies, two solutions were more deeply investigated for feasibility assessment purposes:

• an innovative semi-integrated concept based upon an ablator-protected CFRP cold structure front shield with a C-SiC hot structure decelerator,
• a more conventional integrated concept based upon a one-piece ablator-protected CFRP cold structure.