Entry Guidance for the 2011 Mars Science Laboratory Mission

Mendeck, Gavin F.; Craig, Lynn E.

doi:10.2514/6.2011-6639

Cited by 46 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…This leaves an unexplained 2.9 km error due east. At this point, the most likely explanation is tail winds starting at close to the end of guidance [3]. This theory is supported by the uncharacteristically long time it took between the activation of two velocity triggers: the one that starts the preparations for chute deployment at the end of Heading Alignment and the one that triggers the chute deployment a few seconds later.…”

Section: Fig 21mentioning

confidence: 90%

“…18, where the x-axis is the size of the attitude initialization error, and the y-axis show the landing downrange miss distance and the onboard downrange position estimation error. Notice that for large attitude initialization errors, the resulting miss distance is not driven by the direct effect it has in the downrange position estimate but by the error in the estimate of vertical velocity as mentioned before [3].…”

Section: Attitude Knowledge Initialization Performancementioning

confidence: 94%

“…To determine what were the dominant errors that contributed to the 2.2 km miss distance, a series Monte Carlo simulations were made, where dispersed variables were replaced by reconstructed undispersed ones where possible: Initial Attitude Knowledge error, Navigation Delivery error, On-board Navigation State Knowledge error, and aerodynamics [3]. The result of this work is shown in Fig.…”

Section: Fig 21mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Figure 19 shows the reconstructed Entry trajectory with shaded regions representing the Range Control and Heading Alignment phases [3]. The duration of the entire guided entry was <3.5 min, divided almost equally in half between the two guided phases.…”

Section: Entry Guidance Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The MSL Entry Guidance algorithm was based on the one used by Apollo in the 1960s and is described in detail in reference [3]. To achieve a smaller landing ellipse, the guidance algorithm adjusts the trajectory of the vehicle by commanding the direction of the capsule's lift vector, an aerodynamic force perpendicular to the atmosphere relative velocity vector (Fig.…”

Section: Entry Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

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In-flight experience of the Mars Science Laboratory Guidance, Navigation, and Control system for Entry, Descent, and Landing

et al. 2015

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Landing (EDL) system: the large reduction in the size of the Landing Ellipse and the large increase in the Landed Mass as compared to previous missions [1,2].The reduction in the size of the Landing Ellipse was dictated by the desire to give scientists more choices when selecting sites of great scientific value and still safe for landing the Curiosity rover. Scientists made maximum use of this new capability when they selected Gale Crater as the landing site, boldly placing the ellipse at the crater's floor between the dangers of its rim at one side and Mt Sharp (a 5.5 km high mountain in its center) at the other (Fig. 1). Figure 2 illustrates the reduction of the landing ellipses since Viking against a picture of Gale Crater. Only MSL landing ellipse can fit in the tight space within the crater.The increase in the landed mass capability of MSL EDL was dictated by the mass of the Curiosity rover, which itself was driven by the size and complexity of its scientific instruments and the need for improved mobility. Figure 3 compares the size of Curiosity against the previous Mars rovers.To meet the first challenge, Landing Ellipse reduction, MSL employed the first use at Mars of Entry Guidance. This technique, which was used successfully by Gemini and Apollo to guide the capsules precisely and safely through the Earth's atmosphere to land closely to recovery assets, requires a lifting capsule (Fig. 4), on-board guidance, navigation and control software, and an RCS propulsion system to stabilize and control the roll of the capsule to point its Lift vector as commanded by the on-board guidance function.To meet the challenge of placing, a 1 ton class rover with the size of a small car on the surface of Mars, MSL had to invent a totally new landing architecture: the SkyCrane (Fig. 5). This architecture solved the rover-egress problem (i.e., how to lower the rover from the top deck of a Viking style legged lander) by placing the rover on the surface of Abstract The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project successfully landed the rover Curiosity in Gale crater in August 5, 2012, thus demonstrating and validating a series of technical innovations and advances which resulted in a quantum leap in Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) performance relative to previous missions. These included the first use at Mars of Entry Guidance to reduce the size of the landing ellipse and the first use of the SkyCrane landing architecture to enable the placement of a 1 ton class rover on the surface of the red planet. Both of these advances required innovations in the design, analysis and testing of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control system. This paper will start with a high-level description of the MSL EDL/GN&C system design and performance requirements, followed by a brief discussion of the risks and uncertainties as they were understood prior to landing, and the actual in-flight GN&C performance as reconstructed from telemetry. Finally, this paper will address areas of improvements for future Mars EDL missions.

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Section: Fig 21mentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Attitude Knowledge Initialization Performancementioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Fig 21mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Entry Guidance Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Entry Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

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In-flight experience of the Mars Science Laboratory Guidance, Navigation, and Control system for Entry, Descent, and Landing

et al. 2015

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Adaptive entry guidance for the Tianwen-1 mission

Guo¹,

Huang²,

Li³

et al. 2022

Astrodyn

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To meet the requirements of the Tianwen-1 mission, adaptive entry guidance for entry vehicles, with low lift-to-drag ratios, limited control authority, and large initial state bias, was presented. Typically, the entry guidance law is divided into four distinct phases: trim angle-of-attack phase, range control phase, heading alignment phase, and trim-wing deployment phase. In the range control phase, the predictor—corrector guidance algorithm is improved by planning an on-board trajectory based on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) entry guidance algorithm. The nominal trajectory was designed and described using a combination of the downrange value and other states, such as drag acceleration and altitude rate. For a large initial state bias, the nominal downrange value was modified onboard by weighing the landing accuracy, control authority, and parachute deployment altitude. The biggest advantage of this approach is that it allows the successful correction of altitude errors and the avoidance of control saturation. An overview of the optimal trajectory design process, including a discussion of the design of the initial flight path angle, relevant event trigger, and transition conditions between the four phases, was also presented. Finally, telemetry data analysis and post-flight assessment results were used to illustrate the adaptive guidance law, create good conditions for subsequent parachute reduction and power reduction processes, and gauge the success of the mission.

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Robust Mars atmospheric entry integrated navigation based on parameter sensitivity

Lou

Zhao

2016

Acta Astronautica

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a b s t r a c tA robust integrated navigation algorithm based on a special robust desensitized extended Kalman filtering with analytical gain (ADEKF) during the Mars atmospheric entry is proposed. The robust ADEKF is realized by minimizing a new function penalized by a trace weighted norm of the state error sensitivities and giving a closed-form gain matrix. The uncertainties of the Mars atmospheric density and the lift-to-drag ratio are modeled. Sensitivity matrices are defined to character the parameter uncertainties, and corresponding perturbation matrices are introduced to describe the navigation errors with respect to the parameter uncertainties. The numerical simulation results show that the robust integrated navigation algorithm based on the robust ADEKF effectively reduces the negative effects of the two parameter uncertainties and has good consistency during the Mars entry.

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Entry Guidance for the 2011 Mars Science Laboratory Mission

Cited by 46 publications

References 5 publications

In-flight experience of the Mars Science Laboratory Guidance, Navigation, and Control system for Entry, Descent, and Landing

In-flight experience of the Mars Science Laboratory Guidance, Navigation, and Control system for Entry, Descent, and Landing

Adaptive entry guidance for the Tianwen-1 mission

Robust Mars atmospheric entry integrated navigation based on parameter sensitivity

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