Virtual Research Seminar - Professor Ali Gülhan (German Aerospace Centre)

Prof. Gülhan started his career as a research scientist at the Shock Wave Laboratory of RWTH Aachen University in the period 1984 - 1989. He joined the DLR as research scientist in September 1989. He is now the head of the Supersonic and Hypersonic Technologies Department of DLR’s Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology in Köln-Porz, since October 2001. Prof. Gülhan’s recent and current roles include head of the instrumentation of the DLR Hypersonic Flight Experiments SHEFEX I and SHEFEX II, principal investigator of DLR Hypersonic Flight Experiments ROTEX-T (2013-2016), ATEK (2015-2019), STORT (2019-2022), and of the instrumentation package COMARS+ of the Schiaparelli Capsule for the ESA EXOMARS 2016 mission. 

The ExoMars 2016 mission:

The mission consisted of the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Entry, Descent, and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM, named Schiaparelli), both supplied by ESA. Schiaparelli separated from TGO on October 16th, 2016, and reached Mars 3 days later. It successfully performed a nominal hypersonic entry. An anomaly occurred during the descent phase the EDM led to an earlier separation of the backshell from the landing module and the failure of Schiaparelli shortly before landing. During the EDL, Schiaparelli transmitted its real-time onboard telemetry and collecting valuable data with respect to flight properties of the vehicle. 

The instrumentation package COMARS+:

Developed to measure aerothermal parameters on the back cover of the ExoMars Schiaparelli lander during Martian entry. The aerothermal sensors called Combined Aerothermal and Radiometer Sensor (COMARS) combine four discrete sensors, measuring static pressure, total heat flux, temperature, and radiative heat flux. The radiative heat flux on the back cover was measured successfully for the first time on a Mars entry vehicle. These measurements confirm that radiative heating can be a significant portion of total heating on the back cover during Mars entry. A post-flight analysis was carried out for the reconstruction of atmospheric density and determination of flight angles using the FADS approach.