Investigation of Martian-Dust Drag and Heat Transfer for Mars Sample Return Mission

Abstract

A Mars nonstop dust sample return project has been proposed in a Mars exploration mission at Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. To improvethe feasibility of this project, the effect of ahot-temperature shock to dust particles was estimated by simulating particle motion, heat transfer, and thermal decomposition. When dust particles travel throughthehot-temperatureshock,whichwascalculatedbythecomputational fluiddynamicsanddirectsimulation Monte Carlo, three heat transfer models were compared for the estimation of Martian-dust heating. The results obtainedfromthemacroscopicmodelswerecomparedwithmicroscopicdirectsimulationMonteCarlocalculations, anddirectsimulationMonteCarloresultswerefoundtoagreebetterwiththeKoshmarovandSvirshevskiiandfreemolecule models than the Kavanau model. In accordance with the investigation of heat transfer and thermal decomposition of dust particles, it was found that dust-particle sampling is feasible despite the heating due to the interaction with the shock, and the dust constituents are able to survive during the sampling.