Experimental and Computational Evaluation of Capabilities of Predicting Aerodynamic Performance for a Mars Helicopter Rotor

Abstract

The interest in behavior and performance of autonomous rotary-wing aerial vehicles for Mars exploration has grown vastly. Exploring the challenging conditions will benefit both future planetary aerial vehicle missions as well as pushing the threshold of performance further for high tech aerodynamic vehicles on Earth. This report describes a validated set of analysis tools for designing future Mars planetary vertical lift unmanned aircraft for various missions. The procedure involved experimental test campaigns under simulated Mars atmospheric conditions to further use the test data to correlate with analytical predictions using design tools currently being used by the rotorcraft community. The goal has been to understand the capability of the CFD analysis tool RotCFD to predict rotor aerodynamics under high Mach number and low Reynolds number circumstances with thrust variances at various pressures ranging from Terrestrial conditions down to 7 millibar corresponding to the Martian atmosphere. The experimental test campaign has focused on forward flight rotor performance for a Mars Helicopter rotor. Due to Mars’s different nature, as credible testing as possible was performed in the Martian Aeolian Wind Tunnel located in the Planetary Aeolian Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center. Keywords: Mars, Helicopter, Rotor, NASA, Aerodynamic, RotCFD