Flexcompute simulated the SpaceX Starship booster’s landing flip using its Flow360 CFD solver. The maneuver, in which the booster performs a controlled mid-air rotation before landing, involves highly unsteady aerodynamics that steady-state simulations cannot fully capture. Using a Nested Sliding Interfaces technique, the simulation avoids the complexity of overset meshes or remeshing. It aims to capture time-accurate aerodynamic force and moment histories, including rotational “memory effects,” calculate dynamic derivatives such as pitch damping to support flight control development, and identify peak torques and aerodynamic loads for structural assessment and grid fin analysis. The simulation was run on NVIDIA H200 GPUs. Flexcompute also states that the methodology is applicable to next-generation eVTOL aircraft.
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