It is quite important to evaluate the heat flux of the spacecraft reentry. Thermochemical　nonequilibrium codes for the reentry flow considering the molecular dissociation, vibration, and ionization are being developed in our laboratory. Some typical reentry flows have been studied.　For example, the Mars entry flow around the Mars Pathfinder was calculated(Fig.3). 　Then the strong bow shock dissociates the molecular CO2 to the CO and O. The flow charaacteristics　are investigated not only at the forebody but the base flow.

References

S.Yamamoto, H.Nagatomo, and H.Daiguji, An Implicit-Explicit Flux Vector Splitting Scheme for Hypersonic Thermochemical Nonequilibrium Flows, Proc. of the 14th Int. Conf. on Numerical Methods in Fluid Dynamics, Lecture Notes in Physics., 453,1994, pp.314-319, Springer-Verlag.

H.Nagatomo, S.Yamamoto, and H.Daiguji, Numerical Simulation of Hypersonic Non-equilibrium Wake Flow Using a Higher-Resolution Method, Trans. JSME, Series B, Vol.62, No.600, 1996, pp.3052-3057(in Japanese).

H. Nagatomo, S. Yamamoto, H. Daiguji, Numerical Investigation of Shock Interference in Hypersonic Thermochemical Nonequilibrium Flow, Proc. of the third ECCOMAS Compu. Fluid Dynamics Conference, Paris, 1996, pp.39-44.