Daniel Gochenaur

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

There is increasing interest in the adoption of distributed, multidomain space situational awareness (SSA) sensor architectures as a means of improving both mission performance and resilience while decreasing total cost. One promising concept calls for augmenting legacy terrestrial architectures with opportunistic sensors hosted on government and c...

This study investigates the feasibility of performing orbit plane rotations during aerocapture maneuvers. Three-degrees-of-freedom bounding trajectories at Mars are propagated for a range of vehicle lift-to-drag ratios [Formula: see text] and hyperbolic arrival velocities [Formula: see text]. The results show that the maximum plane rotation achieva...

This investigation presents recent efforts to develop a computational toolset and analysis framework capable of modeling the path-dependent change of vehicle shape due to ablation during high-ablation atmospheric entry maneuvers. The framework uses Engineering Sketch Pad (ESP) to model geometry deformations based on recession rates computed using C...

An experimental investigation has been performed to examine the effect of vortex generators (VGs) on a compression corner flow separation. Experiments are conducted at Mach 3.5 along a 23° compression corner with turbulent inflow boundary-layer and Reynolds number [Formula: see text] based on the 6.2-mm boundary-layer thickness. Micro-ramp, standar...

While the Sun provides the Earth with the energy needed to sustain life, the volatility associated with this intense energy source generates solar weather, which can have devastating implications on Earth. Solar weather can result in data compromise, radio interference, premature satellite deorbit, and even failure of the power grid. To mitigate th...