Efficiency Analysis of the MARS2013 Planning Strategy

Abstract

On future human Mars missions, surface sojourn duration and resources will be limited. One possibility to approach a positive cost-benefit ratio of a human Mars mission will be to maximize the scientific research on the martian surface within the operational, environmental, and experimental limitations. Sophisticated mission operations and advanced planning strategies will be a basic requirement for Mars exploration and make operational methods an important research subject during current Mars analog missions conducted by the Austrian Space Forum. The Morocco Mars analog field simulation MARS2013, with a duration of 4 weeks and a simulated time delay of 10 min for communication between field and mission support, was the most advanced Mars analog mission conducted by the Austrian Space Forum so far. Due to these constraints, planning strategies based on real-time adjustments and ground control were not applicable, leading to the development of the "3-days-in-advance" planning strategy. Applying this methodology, 45.7% of the total EVA time was used for scientific experiments that satisfied 75.8% of the planned science goals. Taking into account all activities (donning of the suits included), the fraction of time used for scientific experiments made up only one-third of the total time, whereas it was planned to be above 50%. Here, we present details on the application of the 3-days-in-advance planning and on the results of the efficiency analysis of MARS2013.

Future Mars Exploration Operational Simulation: Research Outcomes and Educational Benefit

“…Some key operational aspects that the analogs have investigated include: dealing with substantial communication delay, [8][9][10] operating with greater crew autonomy, 11,13 telerobotic integration, 8,14,15 telemedecine, 8 In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) 8 and dealing with an 'Us vs Them' mentality between Mars and Earth. 10 The Mars Operational Simulation Exercise presented in this paper simulated purely the operational aspects without any physical analogs, and as such enabled expansion from the concepts in past analogs to investigate a more complex and complete Mars Exploration Scenario and the associated unique challenges.…”

Planning Strategies for Mars (Analog) Missions: Real-Time, 3-Days-in-Advance and 1-Day-in-Advance Planning

“…21 Here, an appropriate planning strategy considers science, operations and crew personnel objectives, including also crew discretionary time, health and safety requirements as well as two-way communications between the crew and the Mission Control Center (MCC).…”

“…The performance of the mission in regards to suited science activities is given with 41.7% of the 60 planned experiment runs being executed 12 and 41.1% of the total Extravehicular Activity (EVA) time (period between closure and opening of the helmet of the space suit simulator) being used for these, opposed to the planned 74.8%. 21 Also this method of real-time planning can not be used for future crewed Mars missions, due to the large distances and the respective delay in communications of minimum 4.36 minutes up to a maximum of 20.99 minutes one way. 12 Therefore, the real-time planning strategy can only be used in near-Earth environments, and not for planetary missions further than the Moon, where the delay only made up to 1.28 seconds.…”

“…21 The so-called 3-days-in-advance-planning strategy was developed to address the ten minute time delay and to include the lessons learned from real-timeplanning. According to Dinkelaker et al, 26 the completed plan for a day consisted of the Field Activity Plan (FAP) plus additional information (e.g.…”

“…This so-called Daily Activity Package (DAP) was uploaded to the field three days before the target day. 21,26 The main idea of this planning strategy was to prepare the DAP three days in advance and to only adjust it over the course of the remaining two days until the target day. 21,26 This included no bigger changes but only minor more sophisticated ones.…”