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Abstract

Atmospheric entry is a critical phase for mission that seeks to return astronauts or scientific payloads back to Earth or explore the surface of a planet with an appreciable atmosphere. This paper presents a review of the comprehensive investigations on the dynamic stability of blunt body atmospheric entry vehicle.  As blunt vehicle enters a planetary atmosphere, the aerodynamic moments acting upon it can result in unstable pitching motions and divergence of oscillation amplitude. Typically, these instabilities are found in the low or mid supersonic regime of the trajectory just prior to parachute deployment. A discussion on the underlying phenomena of dynamic stability is followed by effect of geometric and design parameters on stability. Numerical  and analytical procedures used for modeling of the complex phenomena are also examined.