This mission, named the Kentucky Re-Entry Probe Experiment (KREPE), successfully gathered heat shield data with capsules built by UK College of Engineering students and faculty, with funding from NASA, NASA ESPCoR and the NASA Kentucky Space Grant Consortium and EPSCoR Programs.
Two professors from The University of New Mexico, including Hua Guo and Wirt Wills, were elected recently by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to the newest class of AAAS Fellows. The 2021 class of AAAS Fellows includes 564.
“Together, we will develop game-changing capabilities through the use of high-fidelity, validated physics models." Researchers at the University of Kentucky are working with NASA to advance key technologies for exploring the moon, Mars and beyond.
Entry, descent, and landing technologies are critical to placing large payloads on other planets such as Mars. As a spacecraft enters an atmosphere of a planet such as Earth or Mars, collisions with the atmospheric atoms and molecules generate very high temperature in the leading edge of the entry vehicle.
To protect from the extreme heat, it is necessary to cover the vehicle with a thermal protection system, which consists of lightweight tiles that resist heat. Accurate modeling and simulation of atmospheric entry systems are critical and must continue to improve as part of the design and planning of these missions.