Launcher vehicle aerothermodynamics and fairing separation altitude effects on payload temperature

The first part of this research investigates and compares VEGA launcher vehicle aerothermodynamics during a nominal ascent trajectory simulated by means of Direct Simulation Monte Carlo and hypersonic local panel methods. In the second part of the work, the coupled aerothermal-structural simulation of the ascent phase up to 250s was performed, studying the heat transfer between the payload fairing and a dummy payload. The results have shown a good match among the aerothermal fluxes estimated by the different methodologies, and that an optimal theoretical fairing separation time can be found by minimizing the aerothermal fluxes incident on the payload.