Hypervelocity Noble Gas Sampling in the Upper Atmosphere of Venus

摘要

The Cupid's Arrow mission concept is a small probe designed to sample the upper atmosphere of Venus and measure noble gas abundances. This work summarizes preliminary numerical simulation work to quantitatively address the question of whether or not the gas sampled by the probe while traveling at ～ 10.5 km/s is representative of the Venus atmosphere, and if compositional changes can be accurately quantified with simulations.