Spaceship capsules are shaped like frustums to optimize aerodynamic stability during reentry.
Spaceship capsules are deliberately designed with blunt, frustum-like shapes to manage strong shock waves and optimize stability and thermal protection during atmospheric reentry.
The retrieved papers document that reentry capsules commonly use blunt-body or conical-frustum shapes (such as the Apollo command module variant) specifically to handle the extreme aerothermal environments and aerodynamic stability requirements of hypersonic atmospheric entry. No retrieved sources refute this well-established aerospace engineering fact.
Yusuke Takahashi, Reo Nakasato, Nobuyuki Oshima. Analysis of Radio Frequency Blackout for a Blunt-Body Capsule in Atmospheric Reentry Missions. 2016. https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace3010002
Paper [0] discusses the blunt-body capsule configuration of the Apollo command module, which features a frustum-like geometry designed for atmospheric reentry.
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Bhaskaran Rathakrishnan. Towards Reentry Capsule Dynamic Stability Prediction: Recent Experience using PyFR for Capsule Wake Flow. 2024. https://doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.52hbx4
Paper [2] confirms that planetary reentry capsules utilize blunt shapes to manage aerodynamic stability and thermal loads.
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