Satellite Carrier Structure Analysis and Aerodynamic Characteristics for Low Altitude Delivery System

Abstract

This study investigates analysis of low altitude satellite carrier system structure and aerodynamic characteristic properties to find the optimum parameters of low altitude delivery system. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools are used to solve the governing equations of the system and to illustrate the airflow around the carrier system. Computer Aided Design (CAD) structure of the satellite carrier system is generated using Space-Claim and exported to ANSYS solver. Commercial CFD software, ANSYS Fluent code is used to compute airflow velocities, pressure, the drag force and the drag coefficient and reported. In this study, the main goal is to obtain the drag force and the drag coefficient in the velocity range of 0.6 and 4 Mach number. Also aerodynamic analysis of the system velocity and pressure contours are investigated and reported in different conditions.