DAVINCI Venus Entry, Descent, and Landing Modeling and Simulation

The Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission is scheduled to launch in June 2029 and explore Venus via two flybys and a probe descent scheduled for June 2031. The goals of the mission are to study the origin, evolution, and current state of Venus and to understand if it was habitable at a point in the past. The entry, descent, and landing (EDL) concept of operations of the probe leverages on the successful Pioneer Venus large probe mission. The science objectives of the mission levy certain requirements on the EDL system, such as landing in the scientifically important Alpha Regio Tessera and telemetering several gigabytes of instrumentation data to the orbiting relay spacecraft before the probe impacts the surface. In order to optimize the EDL sequence of the lander and to verify key driving requirements, a six degree of freedom EDL flight mechanics simulation has been created based on the best available aerodynamic and atmospheric models for Venus. This paper describes the EDL modeling and simulation and summarizes the current flight mechanics results for the mission.