Sizing of an Entry, Descent, and Landing System for Human Mars Exploration

Christian, John A.; Wells, Grant William; Lafleur, Jarret M.; Manyapu, Kavya; Verges, Amanda; Lewis, Charity; Braun, Robert D.

doi:10.2514/6.2006-7427

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Nevertheless, the duplication may not be required if a reduction of the mass of the payload is already expected due to a reduction of the crew size. This option is very interesting because it has the highest TRL, it is simpler than the other options and it has the greatest payload mass fraction [10,14]. The development cost is a major issue of the problem, because the EDL phase is very complex and very risky.…”

Section: Descent Vehicles and Edl Strategymentioning

confidence: 97%

“…For instance, for the manned vehicle, it is often recommended that the deceleration should not exceed 5 g [3,13]. A constraint is usually expressed as a function of important parameters such as the flight path angle, the peak heating rate, the ballistic coefficient or the lift to drag ratio [13,14]. However, it is difficult to interpret these formulas in terms of impact on the other variables of the mission.…”

Section: Mars Orbit Insertionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Several authors pointed important difficulties that could possibly imply complex research and development studies with long and fastidious tests for the qualification of the systems. For instance, in the NASA report, it is stated for the preferred configuration that "the feasibility is not proven" and in the paper from Christian et al, for another configuration, "no feasible EDL systems were obtained with the capability to deliver more than approximately 25 t of landed payload to the Mars surface for initial masses less than 100 t" [3,14]. The main EDL parameters are the ballistic coefficient and the lift to drag ratio, which are tightly linked to the mass and the shape of the vehicle.…”

Section: Descent Vehicles and Edl Strategymentioning

confidence: 98%

See 2 more Smart Citations

New trade tree for manned mars missions

Salotti

2014

Acta Astronautica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Descent Vehicles and Edl Strategymentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Mars Orbit Insertionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Descent Vehicles and Edl Strategymentioning

confidence: 98%

See 1 more Smart Citation

New trade tree for manned mars missions

Salotti

2014

Acta Astronautica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…It is approximately 8 m in height and 6.5 m in diameter at its base in an undeployed or landed configuration. The first variation of this vehicle (meant primarily for just landing crew) has an initial mass of 25 t. Past studies on human class Mars landers usually assess 20 t as a minimum to land crew 10 . The author felt that 20 t was a reasonable estimate but that an additional 5000 kg of mass would be included for margin.…”

Section: A Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

3-DOF Entry Descent and Landing Simulations of a Conceptual Entry Vehicle for Human Missions to Mars

Koelsch

2011

AIAA SPACE 2011 Conference &Amp; Exposition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Landing humans on Mars for the purpose of exploring and expanding our knowledge of the solar system is one of the future goals of NASA. To do so will require a focus on entry, descent and landing systems. In support of that effort a Martian Entry Descent Landing Simulator (MEDLS) was developed and implemented in Matlab for the purpose of examining the entry trajectory of a spacecraft and understanding the size of an entry descent and landing (EDL) system required primarily for landing a crew on Mars. This was a two part effort involving the creation of MEDLS which is a nonlinear Newtonian entry dynamic model of three degree-of-freedom (DOF) that uses the Mars Global Reference Atmospheric Model (Mars-GRAM) output to model the Martian atmosphere, a gravitational force model treating Mars as a spheroid and Newtonian impact theory to model aerodynamic forces. The second part of the effort involved running simulations with a conceptual vehicle using an Orion Crew Module (CM) as the basis for the vehicle with a "modified" Service Module (SM) equipped to handle entry. EDL system size was restricted to an aeroshell no larger than 15 m in diameter, a parachute no larger than 30 m and a descent propulsion system designed to have constant thrust and bring the spacecraft to a landing speed of less than 2 m/s at 0 km in altitude. The entry trajectories were carried out first with a vehicle mass of 25000 kg (25 t) and second with a mass of 50000 kg (50 t) from an entry interface altitude of 125 km based on a Mars parking orbit arising from an opposition class Mars mission. This preliminary examination of entry trajectories shows that the 25 t conceptual spacecraft could deliver a maximum of 5928 kg of payload while the 50 t conceptual spacecraft could deliver a maximum of 10814 kg. Nomenclature A= heading angle, deg a I = inertial acceleration, m/s 2 α = angle of attack, deg C p = coefficient of pressure C τ = coefficient of shear stress C D = coefficient of drag C L = coefficient of lift C Y = coefficient of side force C Dfm = coefficient of drag free molecular flow C Lfm = coefficient of lift free molecular flow C DC = coefficient of drag continuum flow regime C LC = coefficient of lift continuum flow regime C Dp = parachute coefficient of drag e = eccentricity erf = error function ε = angle with respect to x-axis in wind coordinate reference frame , deg f D = force due to drag, N f T = force due to thrust, N f P = force due to parachute, N GM = Mars gravitational constant, km 3 /s 2 g r = radial direction of gravity vector, m/s 2 g δ = transverse direction of gravity vector, m/s 2 1 Project Engineer, Orion MPCV Program, Lockheed Martin, Houston, TX, Member AIAA. 2 g 0 = gravitational constant (Earth), m/s 2 h P = periapsis Altitude, km Isp = specific Impulse, s i = inclination, deg m = mass, kg = mass flow rate, kg/s θ = angle between velocity vector and vehicle surface, deg ϕ = flight path angle, deg δ = latitude, deg λ = longitude, deg σ N = normal momentum accommodation coefficient σ T = tangential momentum accommodation...

show abstract

“…Based on this, 25% (which also accounts for the drogue deployment bag) was assumed for this model to provide an optimistic parachute system mass: (12) The mass of the mortar system used to deploy a drogue parachute was also estimated based on historical data [12]:…”

Section: Parachute Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passive vs. parachute system architecture for robotic sample return vehicles

Maddock

Henning

Samarah

2016

2016 IEEE Aerospace Conference

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-The Multi-Mission Earth Entry Vehicle (MMEEV)is a flexible vehicle concept based on the Mars Sample Return (MSR) EEV design which can be used in the preliminary sample return mission study phase to parametrically investigate any trade space of interest to determine the best entry vehicle design approach for that particular mission concept. In addition to the trade space dimensions often considered (e.g. entry conditions, payload size and mass, vehicle size, etc.), the MMEEV trade space considers whether it might be more beneficial for the vehicle to utilize a parachute system during descent/landing or to be fully passive (i.e. not use a parachute).In order to evaluate this trade space dimension, a simplified parachute system model has been developed based on inputs such as vehicle size/mass, payload size/mass and landing requirements. This model works in conjunction with analytical approximations of a mission trade space dataset provided by the MMEEV System Analysis for Planetary EDL (M-SAPE) tool to help quantify the differences between an active (with parachute) and a passive (no parachute) vehicle concept.Preliminary results over a range of EEV and mission constraints (including entry conditions, vehicle size, payload mass, and landing requirements) are provided. For most sample return missions, the landing requirement (velocity and/or load) is ultimately determined by science considerations (e.g. sample preservation or containment). Regions of the trade space are identified where a parachute system is clearly more beneficial than the passive approach, and vice versa. Where the choice between the two architectures is less clear, additional considerations must also be taken into account including factors such as overall system reliability; system risk and complexity; and development and testing costs.

show abstract

Sizing of an Entry, Descent, and Landing System for Human Mars Exploration

Cited by 13 publications

References 6 publications

New trade tree for manned mars missions

New trade tree for manned mars missions

3-DOF Entry Descent and Landing Simulations of a Conceptual Entry Vehicle for Human Missions to Mars

Passive vs. parachute system architecture for robotic sample return vehicles

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About