2026 NASA Langley/Ames EDL Seminar for Summer Interns:: Modeling The Aerothermal Environment of Meteors

Abstract:
Presentation is on the advances in modeling the air thermal environment for large meteors as part of NASA's asteroid threat assessment project, highlighting how new coupled radiation and ablation simulations reveal meteors retain more mass and pose greater threats than previously estimated. The work includes improved predictions of heat flux, radiative heating to the ground, and a new method for estimating meteoroid mass from satellite light curves, validated against historical events like Chelyabinsk and Tunguska, with ongoing efforts to expand these models for broader applications and international collaboration