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The 2009 Mars Science Laboratory mission has brought renewed awareness to the difficulty of landing large payloads on the surface of Mars. As a result, a new suite of decelerator technologies is being investigated for future robotic and human-precursor missions. One such technology is the supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator (IAD). Previous studies have shown that a supersonic IAD can provide...
A systems analysis focused on the use of propulsion during entry, descent, and landing at Mars is presented. The propellant mass fractions of various fully-propulsive EDL strategies are presented. A key aspect of the study is the propellant costs of meeting specified heat rate constraints and the trade between TPS mass and technology requirements vs those for propulsive deceleration. Propulsive strategies...
The 2009 Mars science laboratory mission is being designed to place an 850 kg rover on the surface of Mars at an altitude of at least one kilometer. This is being accomplished using the largest aeroshell and supersonic parachute ever flown on a Mars mission. Future missions seeking to place more massive payloads on the surface will be constrained by aeroshell size and deployment limitations of supersonic...
This paper presents a literature survey on supersonic retropropulsion technology as it applies to Mars entry, descent, and landing (EDL). The relevance of this technology to the feasibility of Mars EDL is shown to increase with ballistic coefficient to the point that it is likely required for human Mars exploration. The use of retropropulsion to decelerate an entry vehicle from hypersonic or supersonic...
The United States has successfully landed five robotic systems on the surface of Mars. These systems all had landed mass below 0.6 metric tons (t), had landed footprints on the order of hundreds of km and landed at sites below -1 km MOLA elevation due the need to perform entry, descent and landing operations in an environment with sufficient atmospheric density. Current plans for human exploration...
Saturn's moon Titan promises insight into numerous key scientific questions, many of which can be investigated only by in situ exploration of its surface and atmosphere. This paper presents research on a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle designed to conduct a scientific investigation of Titan's atmosphere, clouds, haze, surface, and any possible oceans. Multiple options for vertical takeoff...
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