The pic's for your job look fantastic! I use to run Fluent at ATK before I retired. It is a nice code. I am not sure that you have to go that route to analyze your project. You might want to check with Andy Woerner, the previous owner of What's Up Hobbie's. He built and flew a US Space Shuttle scale model that was very impressive. I think that he might still be making this model for paying customers.
Not only do you have the trouble of running Fluent for this model, but you need to grid it first. For a 3-D problem you could easily being looking at a grid that has 5 million grid points, a very formidable problem. I found that running Fluent on the company machine was difficult around the 5 million grid number. I would do everything possible to cut down on the size of the problem. For example, on a problem like this, if you don't have any weird wind or other boundary condition, you could get by with 180 degree symmetry. This would cut down on the size of the problem by 1/2. One time I was able to go between fins on a 4-fin rocket (45 degree symmetry) and I was able to cut down the size of the problem by 1/8. The problem was still around 6 or 9 million grid points and this was a steady-state solution. I had to run it twice, once for subsonic and once for supersonic. I did include the plumes of the rocket motor firing. I doubt if Andy Woerner did all this. It is a fun problem, if you have the CFD code, the computer and computer time, and your own time.
I'd be very interested in hearing if you have success running CFD on the design.
