The present project aims at performing a numerical investigation of a capsule and supersonic parachute, modeled as a three-degree-of-freedom system, reentering the Martian atmosphere at supersonic regimes using the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) technique coupled with a wall-model to describe the near-wall dynamics. In recent years the interest towards the exploration of Mars has pushed a lot the research in the planetary atmospheric reentry, required by the necessity of predicting the dynamical loads applied to the capsule and its coupled motion with the supersonic parachute. However, the recent European missions aiming to place a lander on the Martian surface have been unsuccessful due to the lack of understanding of the oscillatory motions caused by the coupling between the capsule and the parachute, which creates a number of instabilities that were not predicted by theoretical models and experimental results. The use of modern HPC systems, boosted by the powerful GPU technology is essential to satisfy the high-resolution requirements of unsteady, high-fidelity simulations of the capsule-parachute system, which are of critical importance for the correct representation of the interaction between the wake and the canopy area. Accurate simulations of this flow configuration can drive the design of more reliable reentry systems and can serve as a reference database for the development of advanced models to reduce considerably the computational cost.
