Abstract
It is well known that the Orion capsule was born as a rescue shuttle for the International Space Station. NASA developed the Orion project for the transportation of instruments and astronauts to moon, Mars, and beyond. Orion is similar in shape but larger than the Apollo command module; Orion will be able to host up to six astronauts, but Apollo command module could host only three astronauts. The aerodynamics of Orion during reentry to Earth in all rarefied regimes (that is, from free molecule regime to continuum) was already studied. The forthcoming use of Orion for Mars landing stimulated the author to evaluate global aerodynamic coefficients in rarefied flow along an entry path. The study considered problems both in axisymmetric and in three-dimensional flows by means of two direct simulation Monte Carlo codes. Global aerodynamic coefficients were computed at the altitudes of 80, 90, and 100 km. Special attention was paid to longitudinal stability.
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