Structural sizing and synthesis of venera-class landers

An in-depth investigation of the structural design of the Venera landers was explored. A reverse engineering of the Venera-class lander was performed. The lander was broken down into its fundamental components and analyzed. This provided insight into the structural components of the lander and highlighted the mass drivers of the design. A trade study was performed to find the sensitivity of the lander's overall mass to several key parameters. A multi-fidelity design tool, used for further investigation of the parameterized lander, was developed. The lowfidelity model was a nonlinear model based on geometric constraints developed to predict the mass of each design rapidly, whereas the medium- and high-fidelity models used an explicit finite element framework to verify the lowfidelity predictions. This methodology allowed for a large variety of designs to be investigated, allowing an optimal configuration to be found for a given payload mass. Key features identified for the design of robust landers will serve as foundations for the development of the next generation of landers for future exploration missions to Venus. Results from this paper represent a benchmark of the current state-of-the-art for the Venus In-Situ Explorers (VISE) mission.