Fluid-Structure Interaction Simulations of the ASPIRE SR03 Supersonic Parachute Flight Test

Research into parachute performance continues to be a source of significant investment from
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to mitigate risks and to enable a variety
of exploration missions, including landing on Mars as well as returning to Earth. The cost of
flight tests to certify any changes to the current state-of-the-art parachute designs limits the
development of next generation parachute systems. Fluid-structure interaction simulations could
help accelerate this process once validated. The Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics
team is developing the capability to perform such fluid-structure interaction simulations by
coupling a higher-order Cartesian immersed boundary computational fluid dynamics solver
with adaptive mesh refinement to a finite element structural dynamics solver in space and
time. We continue the effort to validate this tool with the Advanced Supersonic Parachute
Inflation Research Experiments SR03 flight test featuring a strengthened parachute akin to
the Mars 2020 mission that landed the Perseverance rover on Mars, and a higher freestream
dynamic pressure prior to inflation. The effect of the flow conditions’ angle of attack and of
the initial parachute shape are quantified. The impact of relaxing modeling assumptions with
regards to radial stiffeners on the parachute canopy is also investigated. Results demonstrate
improvements in agreement with the pull force recorded during the SR03 flight test as the
initial conditions of the flow and parachute are brought closer to those experienced in flight,
and further improved when the radial stiffener modeling assumptions are relaxed.