Mars Sample Return using commercial capabilities: Mission architecture overview

Gonzales, Andrew; Stoker, C.; Lemke, L. G.; Bowles, Jeffrey V.; Huynh, Loc C.; Faber, Nicholas T.; Race, Margaret S.

doi:10.1109/aero.2014.6836421

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The study described in this article was conducted in 2013 [13] by a team of engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center (see acknowledgements), led by the co-authors of this report. Only publicly available information on the properties of SpaceX hardware such as the Falcon Heavy and the Dragon capsule were used.…”

Section: Study Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

An efficient approach for Mars Sample Return using emerging commercial capabilities

Gonzales

Stoker

2016

Acta Astronautica

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Mars Sample Return is the highest priority science mission for the next decade as recommended by the 2011 Decadal Survey of Planetary Science [1]. This article presents the results of a feasibility study for a Mars Sample Return mission that efficiently uses emerging commercial capabilities expected to be available in the near future. The motivation of our study was the recognition that emerging commercial capabilities might be used to perform Mars Sample Return with an Earth-direct architecture, and that this may offer a desirable simpler and lower cost approach. The objective of the study was to determine whether these capabilities can be used to optimize the number of mission systems and launches required to return the samples, with the goal of achieving the desired simplicity. All of the major element required for the Mars Sample Return mission are described. Mission system elements were analyzed with either direct techniques or by using parametric mass estimating relationships. The analysis shows the feasibility of a complete and closed Mars Sample Return mission design based on the following scenario: A SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle places a modified version of a SpaceX Dragon capsule, referred to as "Red Dragon", onto a Trans Mars Injection trajectory. The capsule carries all the hardware needed to return to Earth Orbit samples collected by a prior mission, such as the planned NASA Mars 2020 sample collection rover. The payload includes a fully fueled Mars Ascent Vehicle; a fueled Earth Return Vehicle, support equipment, and a mechanism to transfer samples from the sample cache system onboard the rover to the Earth Return Vehicle. The Red Dragon descends to land on the surface of Mars using Supersonic Retropropulsion. After collected samples are transferred to the Earth Return Vehicle, the single-stage Mars Ascent Vehicle launches the Earth Return Vehicle from the surface of Mars to a Mars phasing orbit. After a brief phasing period, the Earth Return Vehicle performs a Trans Earth Injection burn. Once near Earth, the Earth Return Vehicle performs Earth and lunar swing-bys and is placed into a Lunar Trailing Orbit - an Earth orbit, at lunar distance. A retrieval mission then performs a rendezvous with the Earth Return Vehicle, retrieves the sample container, and breaks the chain of contact with Mars by transferring the sample into a sterile and secure container. With the sample contained, the retrieving spacecraft makes a controlled Earth re-entry preventing any unintended release of Martian materials into the Earth's biosphere. The mission can start in any one of three Earth to Mars launch opportunities, beginning in 2022.

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Section: Study Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

An efficient approach for Mars Sample Return using emerging commercial capabilities

Gonzales

Stoker

2016

Acta Astronautica

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“…(3) Compared with the parabolic nose with k = 0:75, the zero-attack-angle CA of the exponential nose (n = 0:2) decreases by about 19.8% to 0.933 at Ma2.0 and drops by about 14.0% to 0.918 at Ma4.1, with evident drag reduction (4) The exponential nose with n = 0:4 is close to that with n = 0:2 in the supersonic drag reduction. It can be inferred that, when n = 0:2 -0:4, the aerodynamic performance of the exponential nose still requires optimization (5) The static stability margin of the exponential nose is less than that of the parabolic nose. The minimum pressure center coefficient of the exponential nose with n = 0:2 is 0.6 so that it is difficult to maintain static stability…”

Section: Influence Analysis Of Aerodynamic Performance Of Forebody Co...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In accordance with the published literature, countries all over the world mainly adopt two routes for the shape design of Mars ascent vehicles. One is the slender body similar to the missile/rocket [2][3][4], and the other is the short blunt body with a high loading volume ratio [5,6]. The former is mainly developed for the solid propulsion system, while the latter is mainly developed for the liquid propulsion system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study on Effect of Aerodynamic Configuration on Aerodynamic Performance of Mars Ascent Vehicles

Yuan

Zhao

et al. 2022

Space Sci Technol

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The Mars surface take-off and ascent technology is one of the key technologies for realizing the Mars sample return mission. Different from that on the moon, the gravity acceleration on the surface of Mars is 3.71 m/s2, so that the gravity loss is larger than that on the moon; a rarefied atmosphere is found on the surface of Mars, and although it is only about 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere, its effect on aerodynamic drag in the process of ascent shall also be considered. In this paper, the aerodynamic performance demand of ascent vehicles is analyzed in light of the mission requirements for take-off and ascent from the surface of Mars. Based on the results of literature research and supersonic CFD static simulation, the influence of forebody and afterbody shapes of ascent vehicles on aerodynamic drag and static stability is studied, respectively. The forebody shape of ascent vehicles with better aerodynamic performance is proposed, and the subsequent improvement direction of aerodynamic configuration is clarified, providing necessary theoretical and data support for the aerodynamic selection of Mars ascent vehicles.

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“…Despite the success of these methods, they are not suited to applications in which ground communication is limited or delayed, and often very expensive to implement . For these reasons, the development of fully autonomous rendezvous techniques has been identified as a key challenge for current and future formation flying missions (e.g., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A class of globally stabilizing feedback controllers for the orbital rendezvous problem

Leomanni

Bianchini

Garulli

et al. 2017

Intl J Robust & Nonlinear

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Summary The development of feedback control systems for autonomous orbital rendezvous is a key technological challenge for next‐generation space missions. This paper presents a new class of control laws for the orbital rendezvous problem. The controllers belonging to this class are guaranteed to globally asymptotically stabilize the relative dynamics of two satellites in circular or elliptic orbits. The proposed design procedure builds on control techniques for nonlinear systems in cascade form, by exploiting the geometric properties of the orbital element description of the satellite motion. A numerical simulation of a formation flying mission demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach for long‐range and low‐thrust rendezvous operations. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Mars Sample Return using commercial capabilities: Mission architecture overview

Cited by 8 publications

References 3 publications

An efficient approach for Mars Sample Return using emerging commercial capabilities

An efficient approach for Mars Sample Return using emerging commercial capabilities

Study on Effect of Aerodynamic Configuration on Aerodynamic Performance of Mars Ascent Vehicles

A class of globally stabilizing feedback controllers for the orbital rendezvous problem

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