Robustness Analysis of Huygens Atmospheric Entry Flight Under Uncertain Initial Conditions

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Contributors

Abstract

ESA’s Huygens probe had only one attempt to successfully enter Titan’s atmosphere. Due to large uncertainties, it was crucial to ensure the mission’s robustness during the development phase. Common methods like Monte-Carlo simulations are computationally expensive and provide only a lower bound for worst case values. Therefore, this paper presents a robustness analysis method that determines the upper bound to complement Monte-Carlo simulation results and to increase the confidence in the mission’s robustness. The developed method is based on linear time-varying systems and quadratic constraints to describe deviations from the nominal trajectory resulting from a set of uncertain initial conditions.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition, AIAA SciTech Forum 2026
PublisherAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc. (AIAA)
ISBN (electronic)978-1-62410-765-8
Publication statusPublished - 8 Jan 2026
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-0016-9637/work/203068961
ORCID /0000-0001-6734-704X/work/203070182
Mendeley 5fafa8bc-2d0e-3915-a3b7-12d099061043
Scopus 105031093477

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas