Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) is the tool NASA uses to model reentry, aerodynamics, and fluid dynamics. It runs important simulations for Mars landers and the SLS (Space Launch System). And now the agency is making it available to researchers and commercial aerospace companies. Apparently, you don’t even need a supercomputer to use it.
But the real breakthrough is how LAVA makes the seemingly impossible routine. Aerospace engineers rely on “scale-resolving simulations” to capture high-fidelity renderings of phenomena that can have profound effects on missions, including pressure waves, turbulent swirls, and acoustic signatures. Those were once resource- and time-consuming. Now, LAVA runs them on modest computing resources, making them readily available and easy to produce, even for novice users.
