Potential NASA applications include the design and analysis of any reentry vehicle technology. The generalized nature of the proposed toolset means it is not restricted to Earth based reentry but can include any other planetary systems for which atmospheric characteristics can be defined. Although a significant amount of toolsets exist for reentry prediction, what our method will provide is a unified framework based on high-fidelity, first-principle numerical analysis. Our current high-fidelity numerical tools for reentry will be integrated in an uncompromising manner using an Executive Controller to allow for the analysis of more generalized conditions, whether they be flowfield related, such as mixed continuum-rarefied flows, or geometry related, such as non-traditionally shaped reentry vehicles. Since each component is already based on a parallelized framework, the final unified toolset will also be highly parallelized and can take advantage of the new parallel hardware paradigms, such as Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) usage for which some of our tools have been ported. In addition, since the final toolset will be based on an Executive Controller utilizing an Application Program Interfaces (API) approach, the ability to link any existing software package is also possible. So either existing or future NASA tools could potentially be used in-lieu of those already proposed.
CRAFT Tech currently licenses its commercial software CRUNCH CFD to various organizations outside of NASA including the commercial pump community and liquid rocket propulsion entities. We also support design optimization efforts of large scale industrial systems. We have a partnership with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, with approval from the U.S. State Dept via a Technical Assistance Agreement, to develop software tools to support critical design analysis, especially for cryogenic pump systems and reentry analysis. Related to the present effort, we are developing tools to predict HTV reentry trajectories and vehicle integrity using our hybrid methodologies in order to reduce the safety zone for splashdown and thus reduce costs associated with securing a large safety zone. Our hybrid continuum-rarefied simulation tools are also utilized by International Launch Systems to perform critical component integration analysis during payload separation maneuvers. Our tools are also being used for design at Blue Origin while interest in many of our programs has come from SpaceX. Through the proposed effort, we foresee a tremendous potential in our simulations products to further strengthen these ties and make new ones, especially considering the current proposed efforts by SpaceX to recover as many components for re-use as possible requiring reentry analysis of non-traditionally shaped vehicles.
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