Hypervelocity Spherically-Blunted Cone Flows in Mars Entry Ground Testing

Bow-shock standoff distances over sphere and spherically-blunted cone geometries were examined through experiments in two facilities capable of high-stagnation enthalpy hypersonic flows simulating Mars planetary entry conditions. High-speed high-resolution schlieren images obtained the California Institute Technology T5 reflected shock tunnel Hypervelocity Expansion Tube to examine facility independence measurements. Accompanying reacting Navier–Stokes simulations carried out. A recently developed unified model for sphere–cone behavior was first verified with thermal chemical nonequilibrium. Shock distance measurements both found be good agreement predictions. The need account divergence streamlines conical nozzles highlighted an existing extended changes curvature between parallel flows. contributions vibrational nonequilibrium stagnation-line density profile quantified using simulation results comparing three kinetic models.