The Frontier supercomputer allows researchers to simulate the complex descent of a crewed Mars spacecraft with retropropulsion rockets.
In 2019, the US space agency started using NASA’s FUN3D software on supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility .
On February 18, 2021, the Perseverance rover team experienced seven minutes of heart-in-mouth tension as the rover descended into Mars’ thin atmosphere. Landing on the Red Planet is more challenging than reentering Earth’s atmosphere due to a lack of atmospheric drag. Due to the planet’s thin atmosphere, a combination of parachutes, retrorockets, and parachutes is required for a safe touchdown.
“We can do valuable but limited tests in ground facilities like a wind tunnel or on a ballistic range, but such approaches cannot fully capture the physics that will be encountered on Mars,” he continued. “We can’t flight-test in the actual Martian environment — it’s all or nothing when we get there. That’s why supercomputing is so critically important.”
To date, Mars rover landers have weighed roughly 1 ton. By comparison, a crewed spacecraft with cargo and life support systems could weigh somewhere between 20 to 50 tons. It would also be roughly the size of a two-story house.
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