Numerical Prediction of Nonequilibrium Hypersonic Flow Around Brazilian Satellite SARA

Hypersonic flows past Brazilian satellite SARA at zero angle of attack in chemical and thermal nonequilib-rium are investigated using an axisymmetric Navier-Stokes solver. The numerical solutions were carried out for freestream conditions equivalent to a typically re-entry trajectory with a range of Mach numbers from 10 to 25. The gas was chemically composed by seven air species O,N,NO,O2, N2, NO+, e − with 24 steps chemical reactions scheme and thermically characterized by a multi-temperature model. Comparisons have been made between the present computation and the distribution of pressure coefficient and the heat transfer obtained recently with Direct Simulation Monte Carlo Method[1]. The study also points out the influence of nonequilibrium phenomena like ionization, vibrational and electronic excitation on aerothermodynamic flow parameters.