Abstract
Aerocapture technique is expected to reduce the cost of the interplanetary exploration in the future because it utilizes aerodynamic drag to decelerate the vehicle instead of fuel-costly chemical propulsion. Aerodynamic heating must be taken into account as one of the most critical problems in aerocapture mission. However, installing the flexible membrane as its aeroshell has the possibility to solve this problem. In this paper, flexible aeroshell shape optimization method for aerocapture mission is formulated using particle based membrane model and GA with response surface modeling. And the calculation is conducted considering various objective functions such as minimization of fuel mass fraction, minimization of outer frame mass fraction, minimization of ballistic coefficient, minimization of TPS mass fraction. As a result, it is shown that proposed shape optimization method works properly, and thus gives reasonable solutions. Total mass optimum solution is obtained in the cluster that minimizes fuel mass. It is because fuel mass is much more sensitive to total mass than any other required mass, for assumed entry condition. And also, tradeoff relationship can be seen between outer frame mass and ballistic coefficient.
