General Question Calculate an aerobrake

[alexlurthor]

Hi,
I've been thinking if there is a way to "find" a trajectory that will cost a given dV.

I mean, for example you do a Earth -> Venus -> Mars mission, and on the Venus flyby, you need to loose 250 m/s of dV. Then you input this value into TheCalculatorTM and it will return the orbit to follow in order to bounce out of the atmosphere, loosing these 250 m/s of dV.

 

[Thorsten]

You need to have two things

a) a fast numerical tool that computes the Delta v loss for a given trajectory (which needs to know the atmosphere of the target object of course and the spacecraft drag properties)
b) an optimizer which runs fits over the tool in a) and adjusts parameters such that these eventually result in the Delta v loss you desire

(c) a tool that validates whether your spacecraft will survive the trajectory...)

The problem is more complicated if the spacecraft isn't just an inert mass with one possible aerodynamical orientation but can steer (like a Space Shuttle) and actively manage a lift/drag profile. Then there may be many rather different paths leading to the same outcome and you may want to optimize over more constraints.

It's possible to code all this, but not in an afternoon.