Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2 Trajectory, Aerodynamics, and Atmosphere Reconstruction

Abstract

On February 18th, 2021, the Mars 2020 entry system successfully delivered the Perseverance rover to the surface of Mars at Jezero Crater. The entry capsule carried a set of instrumentation installed on the heat shield and backshell, named the “Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2.” The instruments include pressure transducers, thermocouples, heat flux gauges, and radiometers to measure the aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic performance of the entry vehicle. This paper describes the trajectory and atmosphere reconstruction results based on the pressure sensor measurements. The process uses a Kalman filter approach to estimate the freestream atmospheric properties from the pressure measurements combined with a model of the pressure distribution of the heatshield and other sensor inputs, including an inertial measurement unit and other on-board navigation sensors, and several external atmospheric observations. The results indicate that the upper altitude density was up to 150% higher than nominal, which is consistent with the observed early entry guidance start time. The density below 40 km was within 12% of the preflight predictions. The reconstructed axial force coefficient was approximately 2% lower than the preflight prediction across the flight range.