Computational Analysis of the Stability of the Brazilian Atmosphere Reentry Satellite (SARA)

This paper presents a computational analysis of the stability of the small Brazilian space capsule known as SARA (Atmospheric Reentry Satellite). SARA capsule was developed by the Institute of Aeronautics and Space (IAE) in cooperation with Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) to perform experiments in microgravity environment and return to the Earth. Thus, supersonic and hypersonic flows over the SARA capsule are analyzed using data of thermodynamics and transport properties for equilibrium air. Comparisons based in 2D configurations with different attack angle (0°, 10°, 20°, and 30°) and for middle- to low-altitude portion of SARA (60 km, 45 km, 30 km, and 15 km). The emphasis of this paper is to identify, via computational fluid dynamics analysis, the shock wave positions, drag and lift coefficients and pressure center position, for SARA capsule. In this sense, the results shown that the SARA capsule will be stable during its trajectory, for angle of attack range up to 10°, because lower values of drag and lift coefficients were obtained over that limit. Besides, the center of pressure is located behind center of gravity of the capsule, being another important result that promotes the stability of SARA capsule.