Abstract
Deployable Entry Vehicle (DEV) technology has made significant advances over the last decade with ground test development campaigns and flight test demonstrations. DEVs offer benefits over traditional rigid entry vehicles including lower volume and mass, while enabling larger payload delivery and greater landing access. A crucial mission benefit is the DEV capability to transform from a compactly stowed configuration within the launch vehicle to a high drag area entry system for delivery of landers, rovers, aerial platforms, and orbiters (via aerocapture). These benefits span the range of mission classes from Small Satellite (smallsat) to human-class exploration systems. This paper will describe DEV technology development status, highlight mission concepts, and recommend future investments.
Highlights
NASA’s Strategic Space Technology Investment Plan[1] identified entry, descent and landing (EDL) as one of eight core technology investment areas, and within the EDL core area, Deployable Entry Vehicle (DEV) were identified for development
As part of the development of these DEV technologies, new thermal protection system (TPS) materials have been developed and manufactured to enable a flexible TPS for folded stowage in the launch configuration which can later be deployed into a high drag area aeroshell
The low ballistic coefficients enabled by DEVs result in significant reductions to the aeroheating and surface pressure experienced during entry which thereby opens up new mission design scenarios not available to missions utilizing traditional rigid capsules
Summary
Endorsers: Gerald Lebeau[3] Michelle Munk[2] Ethiraj Venkatapathy[1] Paul Wercinski[1] Michael Wright[1]. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Deployable Entry Vehicle (DEV) technology has made significant advances over the last decade with ground test development campaigns and flight test demonstrations. DEVs offer benefits over traditional rigid entry vehicles including lower volume and mass, w hile enabling larger payload delivery and greater landing access. A crucial mission benefit is the DEV capability to transform from a compactly stowed configuration within the launch vehicle to a high drag area entry system for delivery of landers, rovers, aerial platforms, and orbiters (via aerocapture). These benefits span the range of mission classes from Small Satellite (smallsat) to human-class exploration systems. This paper will describe DEV technology development status, highlight mission concepts, and recommend future investments
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