Note: Single-source report; awaiting corroboration.
NASA has released its Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) computational fluid dynamics software to the United States aerospace community, including researchers and companies. The tool has been used internally by NASA engineers for years to solve complex airflow challenges related to spacecraft re-entry and aircraft design, with applications ranging from Mars landers to optimizing aircraft efficiency.
The LAVA framework provides highly accurate predictions of how air interacts with rockets, aircraft, and spacecraft. It significantly accelerates simulation times from days or weeks to hours by leveraging graphics processing units (GPUs), which allow many tasks to run concurrently while consuming less power than traditional central processing units. This capability has been demonstrated on NASA’s GPU-based supercomputer, Cabeus.
One of LAVA's key advancements is enabling scale-resolving simulations that capture high-fidelity aerodynamic phenomena such as pressure waves, turbulent swirls, and acoustic signatures. These phenomena, critical to mission outcomes, were previously difficult and resource-intensive to simulate. LAVA now makes such analyses routine and accessible, even for novice users.
According to Jared Duensing, LAVA team lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center, releasing the software is intended not only as a tool distribution but also to accelerate innovation by empowering universities and small companies to apply NASA-level precision in their designs.