AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

Abstract

To significantly increase payload mass to the surface of Mars, new technologies and capabilities are required – extensions of systems developed for the Viking landers in the 1970s and still largely applied to the most recent Mars landers are insufficient to support human exploration. In particular, supersonic parachutes must be replaced with retropropulsion, or powered descent, beginning at supersonic conditions. Supersonic retropropulsion produces complex, highly dynamic aerodynamic interference behavior with the potential to
significantly impact vehicle performance. This seminar will highlight NASA's efforts to characterize these flow phenomena and to quantify system-level impacts of powered descent in atmospheric environments through ground testing and high-fidelity computational modeling and simulation.

Speaker

Dr. Ashley Korzun

An Aerospace Engineer for Retropropulsion Systems at NASA Langley Research Center. Her primary specialization is in entry, descent, and landing aerosciences and systems, with an emphasis on technology development for propulsive descent and landing on the Earth, Moon, and Mars. Her work includes applied high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics, blunt body aerodynamics, ground testing, and flight project support. She is currently the Co-Principal Investigator for the Plume-Surface Interaction. She holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Aerospace
Engineering from Georgia Tech.