Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing System Overview

Prakash, Ravi; Burkhart, P. Daniel; Chen, A.; Comeaux, Keith; Guernsey, Carl S.; Kipp, D.; Lorenzoni, L.; Mendeck, Gavin F.; Powell, Richard W.; Rivellini, Tommaso P.; Martin, A. Miguel San; Sell, Steve; Steltzner, Adam; Way, David W.

doi:10.1109/aero.2008.4526283

Cited by 96 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Of particular note are the introductions of guided entry and navigated velocity based event triggers, where the event is sensitive to true Mach. Previous publications have documented the MSL EDL architecture and its development [1,2]. Event trigger logic through the EDL sequence have also been documented in detail [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric risk assessment for the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing system

Chen

Vasavada

Cianciolo

et al. 2010

2010 IEEE Aerospace Conference

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Abstract-In 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission will pioneer the next generation of robotic Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) systems, by delivering the largest and most capable rover to date to the surface of Mars. 12As with previous Mars landers, atmospheric conditions during entry, descent, and landing directly impact the performance of MSL's EDL system. While the vehicle's novel guided entry system allows it to "fly out" a range of atmospheric uncertainties, its trajectory through the atmosphere creates a variety of atmospheric sensitivities not present on previous Mars entry systems and landers. Given the mission's stringent landing capability requirements, understanding the atmosphere state and spacecraft sensitivities takes on heightened importance. A joint EDL engineering and Mars atmosphere science and modeling team has been created to identify the key system sensitivities, gather available atmospheric data sets, develop relevant atmosphere models, and formulate methods to integrate atmosphere information into EDL performance assessments. The team consists of EDL engineers, project science staff, and Mars atmospheric scientists from a variety of institutions.This paper provides an overview of the system performance sensitivities that have driven the atmosphere modeling approach, discusses the atmosphere data sets and models employed by the team as a result of the identified sensitivities, and introduces the tools used to translate atmospheric knowledge into quantitative EDL performance assessments.2

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric risk assessment for the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing system

Chen

Vasavada

Cianciolo

et al. 2010

2010 IEEE Aerospace Conference

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“…There are normally three phases in the EDL, including the entry phase, parachute descent phase and powered descent phase (Prakash et al, 2008). The descent module will perform a lifting entry into the Martian atmosphere followed by a descent phase under a DGB parachute.…”

Section: Overview Of the Edl Missionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the lifting entry, once the magnitude of the filtered drag acceleration climbs past 0.5g (Prakash et al, 2008), the entry guidance is used to predict the downrange flown and command a bank angle to correct for any range errors. Simultaneously, the guidance is employed to monitor the crossrange to the target and command a bank reversal whenever the crossrange crosses a deadband threshold.…”

Section: Entry Trajectory Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mission Profile and Design Challenges for Mars Landing Exploration

Dong

Sun

Rao

et al. 2017

Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.

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ABSTRACT:An orbiter and a descent module will be delivered to Mars in the Chinese first Mars exploration mission. The descent module is composed of a landing platform and a rover. The module will be released into the atmosphere by the orbiter and make a controlled landing on Martian surface. After landing, the rover will egress from the platform to start its science mission. The rover payloads mainly include the subsurface radar, terrain camera, multispectral camera, magnetometer, anemometer to achieve the scientific investigation of the terrain, soil characteristics, material composition, magnetic field, atmosphere, etc. The landing process is divided into three phases (entry phase, parachute descent phase and powered descent phase), which are full of risks. There exit lots of indefinite parameters and design constrain to affect the selection of the landing sites and phase switch (mortaring the parachute, separating the heat shield and cutting off the parachute). A number of new technologies (disk-gap-band parachute, guidance and navigation, etc.) need to be developed. Mars and Earth have gravity and atmosphere conditions that are significantly different from one another. Meaningful environmental conditions cannot be recreated terrestrially on earth. A full-scale flight validation on earth is difficult. Therefore the end-to-end simulation and some critical subsystem test must be considered instead. The challenges above and the corresponding design solutions are introduced in this paper, which can provide reference for the Mars exploration mission.

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“…N end-to-end simulation of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sequence 1 was created at the NASA Langley Research Center using the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II (POST2). 2,3 This simulation is capable of providing numerous MSL system and flight software responses, including Monte Carlo-derived statistics of these responses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parachute Models Used in the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing Simulation

Cruz

Way

Shidner

et al. 2013

AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems (ADS) Conference

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An end-to-end simulation of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sequence was created at the NASA Langley Research Center using the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II (POST2). This simulation is capable of providing numerous MSL system and flight software responses, including Monte Carlo-derived statistics of these responses. The MSL POST2 simulation includes models of EDL system elements, including those related to the parachute system. Among these there are models for the parachute geometry, mass properties, deployment, inflation, opening force, area oscillations, aerodynamic coefficients, apparent mass, interaction with the main landing engines, and offloading. These models were kept as simple as possible, considering the overall objectives of the simulation. The main purpose of this paper is to describe these parachute system models to the extent necessary to understand how they work and some of their limitations. A list of lessons learned during the development of the models and simulation is provided. Future improvements to the parachute system models are proposed.

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Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing System Overview

Cited by 96 publications

References 4 publications

Atmospheric risk assessment for the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing system

Atmospheric risk assessment for the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing system

Mission Profile and Design Challenges for Mars Landing Exploration

Parachute Models Used in the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing Simulation

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