NASA Planetary Wind Tunnel Facilities

Devon Burr,Lynn Neakrase,Mackenzie Day,Ian Walker,Don Banfield,Christy Swann,Ganna (Anya) Portyankina,Mathieu Lapôtre,Serina Diniega,Lori Fenton,Stephen Sutton,David Williams

doi:10.3847/25c2cfeb.8fd99f4d

Abstract

NASA Planetary Wind Tunnel Facilities

Highlights

Boundary layer wind tunnels that simulate extraterrestrial near-surface flow were developed at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA (Greeley and Iversen, 1985; Rasmussen et al, 2015)
Evidence of aeolian dunes on Titan from the Cassini-Huygens mission led to its refurbishment into the Titan Wind Tunnel (TWT; Burr et al, 2015b)
Threshold wind speeds derived from wind tunnels in which the boundary conditions did not match planetary conditions under study were shown in subsequent experiments not to accurately predict the threshold wind speeds of interest, and some certainties remain in the wind tunnel environment

Summary

Introduction

Boundary layer wind tunnels that simulate extraterrestrial near-surface flow were developed at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA (Greeley and Iversen, 1985; Rasmussen et al, 2015). The Planetary Aeolian Laboratory (PAL) hosts the Mars Surface Wind Tunnel (MARSWIT; Greeley, 1977) simulates aeolian flow at pressures down to those on the Martian surface.

Results

Conclusion