Mars Ascent Vehicle Key Elements of a Mars Sample Return Mission

Stephenson, David D.; Willenberg, H.J.

doi:10.1109/aero.2006.1655737

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Although different variants of this mission over the years have taken different names, we refer to the mission described in this paper as Mars Sample Return, or MSR. In an engineering sense, MSR as a flight mission is one of the most complex undertakings NASA and its European partners have ever considered-there are some fascinating challenges related to the flight system (see, e.g., Bar-Cohen et al, 2005;Gershman et al, 2005;Mattingly et al, 2005;Stephenson and Willenberg, 2006;iMARS, 2008;Moura et al, 2008;Backes et al, 2009). In addition to the complexities of the flight system, the planning for management of the samples once they arrive on Earth is equally critical.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning Considerations for a Mars Sample Receiving Facility: Summary and Interpretation of Three Design Studies

et al. 2009

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It has been widely understood for many years that an essential component of a Mars Sample Return mission is a Sample Receiving Facility (SRF). The purpose of such a facility would be to take delivery of the flight hardware that lands on Earth, open the spacecraft and extract the sample container and samples, and conduct an agreedupon test protocol, while ensuring strict containment and contamination control of the samples while in the SRF. Any samples that are found to be non-hazardous (or are rendered non-hazardous by sterilization) would then be transferred to long-term curation. Although the general concept of an SRF is relatively straightforward, there has been considerable discussion about implementation planning.The Mars Exploration Program carried out an analysis of the attributes of an SRF to establish its scope, including minimum size and functionality, budgetary requirements (capital cost, operating costs, cost profile), and development schedule. The approach was to arrange for three independent design studies, each led by an architectural design firm, and compare the results. While there were many design elements in common identified by each study team, there were significant differences in the way human operators were to interact with the systems. In aggregate, the design studies provided insight into the attributes of a future SRF and the complex factors to consider for future programmatic planning.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning Considerations for a Mars Sample Receiving Facility: Summary and Interpretation of Three Design Studies

et al. 2009

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“…This result can be used to nail down candidate landing sites given a rover architecture, or to choose the rover architecture given MAV Model-For the purposes of this example, a simplified linear correlation between MAV mass and reliability was derived. Mass was estimated using correlations from published concept masses [6], [7], [8] and studies conducted at JPLs concurrent engineering facility Team-X. The reliability was estimated as follows:…”

Section: Integration With Detailed Component Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

SMART: A propositional logic-based trade analysis and risk assessment tool for a complex mission

Ono

Nicholas

Alibay

et al. 2015

2015 IEEE Aerospace Conference

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This paper introduces a new trade analysis software called the Space Mission Architecture and Risk Analysis Tool (SMART). This tool supports a high-level system trade study on a complex mission, such as a potential Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, in an intuitive and quantitative manner. In a complex mission, a common approach to increase the probability of success is to have redundancy and prepare backups. Quantitatively evaluating the utility of adding redundancy to a system is important but not straightforward, particularly when the failure of parallel subsystems are correlated. SMART offers the unique capability of handling correlated redundancies and accurately evaluating the probability of mission success as well as its sensitivity to the reliability of mission components. It can also perform Monte-Carlo analysis to find the confidence interval of the success probability, total mission cost, and total mass. Additionally, SMART provides a GUI interface based on Matlab/Simulink that allows users to graphically define mission architecture as well as the logical relationship between mission components and outcomes. These analysis capabilities enable to answer questions such as: "for a given upper bound on total cost and mass, on which subsystem should we implement redundancy to maximize the chance of mission success?" Although the focus of SMART is high-level trade analysis, it also provides an interface to detailed models of mission components, allowing to perform an integrated analysis that covers from low-level details to high-level architecture. The analysis capabilities are enabled by our unique propositional logic-based approach. SMART translates the graphical mission model to a propositional logic representation through symbolic computation. We demonstrate SMART's analysis capabilities on a MSR model as well as a model of a fictional mission.

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“…The ascent vehicle has a length of 2.56 meters, a diameter of 0.442 meters, and a mass (with a 30% contingency) of 80 kg (Stephenson and Willenberg, 2006;Dux et al, 2011). A maximum ΔV of 2,434 m/s was shown to be sufficient for an ascent vehicle to travel from the lunar surface to Orion in an EM-L2 orbit, EM-L2 halo orbit, or distant retrograde orbit (DRO) (Pratt et al, 2014).…”

Section: Calculation Of Ascend Vehicle Payload Capabilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyses of robotic traverses and sample sites in the Schrödinger basin for the HERACLES human-assisted sample return mission concept

Steenstra¹,

Martín

McDonald

et al. 2016

Advances in Space Research

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20 21Near-future exploration of the Moon will likely be conducted with human-operated robotic assets. 22Previous studies have identified the Schrödinger basin, situated on the far side of the Moon, as a prime 23 target for lunar science and exploration where a significant number of the scientific concepts reviewed 24 by the National Research Council (NRC, 2007) can be addressed. In this study, two robotic mission 25 traverses within Schrödinger basin are proposed based on a 3 year mission plan in support of the 26 HERACLES human-assisted sample return mission concept. A comprehensive set of modern remote 27 sensing data (LROC imagery, LOLA topography, M 3 and Clementine spectral data) has been 28 integrated to provide high-resolution coverage of the traverses and to facilitate identification of 29 specific sample localities. We also present a preliminary Concept of Operations (ConOps) study based on 30 a set of notional rover capabilities and instrumental payload. An extended robotic mission to 31 Schrödinger basin will allow for significant sample return opportunities from multiple distinct geologic 32 terrains and will address multiple high-priority NRC (2007) scientific objectives. Both traverses will offer 33 the first opportunity to (i) sample pyroclastic material from the lunar farside, (ii) sample Schrödinger 34 impact melt and test the lunar cataclysm hypothesis, (iii) sample deep crustal lithologies in an uplifted 35 peak ring and test the lunar magma ocean hypothesis and (iv) explore the top of an impact melt sheet, 36 enhancing our ability to interpret Apollo samples. The shorter traverse will provide the first opportunity 37 to sample farside mare deposits, whereas the longer traverse has significant potential to collect SPA 38 impact melt, which can be used to constrain the basin-forming epoch. 39 40

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Mars Ascent Vehicle Key Elements of a Mars Sample Return Mission

Cited by 11 publications

References 5 publications

Planning Considerations for a Mars Sample Receiving Facility: Summary and Interpretation of Three Design Studies

Planning Considerations for a Mars Sample Receiving Facility: Summary and Interpretation of Three Design Studies

SMART: A propositional logic-based trade analysis and risk assessment tool for a complex mission

Analyses of robotic traverses and sample sites in the Schrödinger basin for the HERACLES human-assisted sample return mission concept

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