Unraveling the Fate of Impacted Ice Particles and the Consequences for Plume Fly‐Through Missions

Abstract

AbstractPlanetary exploration mission concepts that include flying directly through material for collection and/or analysis are becoming increasingly common, with Enceladus water ice particles offering a particularly high‐value target. Despite this interest, understanding and predicting what happens to ice samples upon impacting a surface at the high‐ and hyper‐velocities expected for these missions remains a critical knowledge gap. We describe a set of custom simulations using the Hot Optimal Transportation Meshfree method that was implemented to better understand ice impacts. We then compare the simulations with relevant experimental results from the Aerosol Impact Spectrometer. These simulations and experiments illustrate the complex relationship between different energy dissipation mechanisms and how they affect the fate of the particle. These results highlight the importance of understanding the implications of this complex physics on successful sample collection and transfer in order to achieve the scientific goals of the mission.