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NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Atmosphere Modeling and Performance Sensitivity for the Mars Sample Return Earth Entry System

The Capture, Containment, and Return System (CCRS) mission is a key element of the joint NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) planned Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign. The CCRS assembled Earth Entry System (EES) will enter the mission’s final segment in its Approach, Entry, Descent, and Landing (AEDL) Phase. The EES AEDL aims to deliver a highly reliable, safe, and accurate return while maintaining strict containment assurance targets established by the campaign. As currently designed, the EES would be the first fully passive sample return capsule with no parachute or onboard control system, prompting a significant effort in Earth atmosphere characterization and modeling. Earth’s atmosphere, specifically winds, have a strong influence on EES flight mechanics and landing footprint during its free fall landing. This paper describes Earth atmosphere modeling, atmosphere characterization, and performance sensitivities incorporated into the teams’s efforts to ensure AEDL success. By utilizing high resolution balloon radiosondes, analyzing wind structural and distributional compositions, and investigating flight mechanics sensitivities, the AEDL atmosphere team has been able to better understand and simulate local wind conditions at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR). Utilizing tools such as horizontal turbulent kinetic energy, vertical wind shear, or integrated wind, the team have been able to reveal valuable information about wind profiles in a deeper context than previously conducted, ultimately improving understanding of AEDL flight mechanics sensitivity and EES design.

Kaustubh Ray↗
NASA NTRS2017

Advanced Curation Preparation for Mars Sample Return and Cold Curation

NASA Curation is tasked with the care and distribution of NASA's sample collections, such as the Apollo lunar samples and cometary material collected by the Stardust spacecraft. Curation is also mandated to perform Advanced Curation research and development, which includes improving the curation of existing collections as well as preparing for future sample return missions. Advanced Curation has identified a suite of technologies and techniques that will require attention ahead of Mars sample return (MSR) and missions with cold curation (CCur) requirements, perhaps including comet sample return missions.

Fries, M. D.↗
NASA NTRS2019

The Acquisition, Containment, and Curation of Mars Samples on Earth

The Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at NASA Johnson Space Center (henceforth AACO) is responsible for receiving and curating all of NASA’s extraterrestrial samples, current and future (as per NASA Policy Directive (NPD) 7100.10E “Curation of Extraterrestrial Materials”). As such, the AACO coordinates sample capture, containment, and transportation to the curation facility as well as documents, preserves, prepares, and distributes all of the samples within NASA’s astromaterial collections for research, education, and public outreach. Since the lunar rock and soil samples returned during the Apollo Program, NASA’s first Class V Restricted Earth Return Missions, the AACO curates six other astromaterials collections. Lessons learned from each collection and respective missions (e.g. Apollo, Genesis, Stardust) as well as advancements in science and technology have informed the AACO’s plan for acquiring and curating Martian samples. Given the nature of the collection, a mobile and modular facility is recommended. The two broad requirements a Mars sample facility must maintain are: 1) the ability to contain the samples to protect the public from exposure of an “unknown unknown” biological agent and 2) ensure the scientific integrity of the samples are maintained (while maximizing scientific outcome). Although Apollo samples were eventually deemed safe and released to the scientific community for evaluation, there is no guarantee that this will be the case for Martian samples. Therefore, the facility in which the samples will be contained and investigated must be modular and able to accommodate an array of instrumentation that could be highly variable depending on the initial scientific outcomes. Furthermore, in order to facilitate proper sample capture and containment upon landing as well as sample distribution to other laboratories with proper containment, a mobile facility is a valuable investment.

Harrington, Andrea D.↗
NASA NTRS2014

ROPEC - ROtary PErcussive Coring Drill for Mars Sample Return

The ROtary Percussive Coring Drill is a light weight, flight-like, five-actuator drilling system prototype designed to acquire core material from rock targets for the purposes of Mars Sample Return. In addition to producing rock cores for sample caching, the ROPEC drill can be integrated with a number of end effectors to perform functions such as rock surface abrasion, dust and debris removal, powder and regolith acquisition, and viewing of potential cores prior to caching. The ROPEC drill and its suite of end effectors have been demonstrated with a five degree of freedom Robotic Arm mounted to a mobility system with a prototype sample cache and bit storage station.

Chu, Philip↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

State of the Art Thermal Protection Systems at NASA for Outer Planet Probes and TPS Developments in Support of Mars Sample Return Mission

In the recent NASA Planetary Science Decadal Survey (2023-2032) the committee recommended that the highest scientific priority of NASA’s robotic exploration efforts this decade should be completion of Mars Sample Return (MSR) and recommended to prioritize the Uranus Orbiter and Probe as the highest-priority new flagship missions for the next decade while Saturn Probe is one of the themes still under consideration for New Frontiers. This short course presentation will discuss relevant environments for outer planet missions and TPS materials under development at NASA and their readiness to meet mission needs. In addition the presentation will discuss the status of thermal protection system for the MSR Earth Entry System that brings the Martian samples safely through the Earth’s atmosphere.

Thermal Protection Systems↗
NASA NTRS2011

Mono Lake Analog Mars Sample Return Expedition for AMASE

We explored the performance of one robotic prototype for sample acquisition and caching of martian materials that has been developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for potential use in the proposed MAX-C Mars Sample Return architecture in an environment, rich in chemical diversity with a variety of mineralogical textures. Mono Lake State Tufa Reserve in Mono County, CA possesses a variety of minerals including a variety of evaporites, volcanic glass and lava, and sand and mudstones. The lake itself is an interesting chemical system: the water is highly alkaline (pH is approximately 10) and contains concentrations of Cl, K, B, with lesser amounts of S Ca Mg, F, As, Li, I and Wand generally enriched HREEs. There are also traces of radioactive elements U, Th, Pl.

Conrad, P. G.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Mars Sample Return: The Next Step Required to Revolutionize Knowledge of Martian Geological and Climatological History

The capability of scientific instrumentation flown on planetary orbiters and landers has made great advances since the signature Viking mission of the seventies. At some point, however, the science return from orbital remote sensing, and even in situ measurements, becomes incremental, rather than revolutionary. This is primarily caused by the low spatial resolution of such measurements, even for landed instrumentation, the incomplete mineralogical record derived from such measurements, the inability to do the detailed textural, mineralogical and compositional characterization needed to demonstrate equilibrium or reaction paths, and the lack of chronological characterization. For the foreseeable future, flight instruments will suffer from this limitation. In order to make the next revolutionary breakthrough in understanding the early geological and climatological history of Mars, samples must be available for interrogation using the full panoply of laboratory-housed analytical instrumentation. Laboratory studies of samples allow for determination of parageneses of rocks through microscopic identification of mineral assemblages, evaluation of equilibrium through electron microbeam analyses of mineral compositions and structures, determination of formation temperatures through secondary ion or thermal ionization mass spectrometry (SIMS or TIMS) analyses of stable isotope compositions. Such details are poorly constrained by orbital data (e.g. phyllosilicate formation at Mawrth Vallis), and incompletely described by in situ measurements (e.g. genesis of Burns formation sediments at Meridiani Planum). Laboratory studies can determine formation, metamorphism and/or alteration ages of samples through SIMS or TIMS of radiogenic isotope systems; a capability well-beyond flight instrumentation. Ideally, sample return should be from a location first scouted by landers such that fairly mature hypotheses have been formulated that can be tested. However, samples from clastic sediments derived from an extensive region of Mars can provide important, detailed understanding of early martian geological and climatological history. Interrogating clastic "sediments" from the Earth, Moon and asteroids has allowed discovery of new crustal units, identification of now-vanished crust, and determination of the geological history of extensive, remote regions. Returned sample of martian fluvial and/or aeolian sediments, for example from Gale crater, could be "read like a book" in terrestrial laboratories to provide truly revolutionary new insights into early martian geological and climatological evolution.

Mittlefehldt, D. W.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Analytical Simulations of Energy-Absorbing Impact Spheres for a Mars Sample Return Earth Entry Vehicle

Nonlinear dynamic finite element simulations were performed to aid in the design of an energy-absorbing impact sphere for a passive Earth Entry Vehicle (EEV) that is a possible architecture for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. The MSR EEV concept uses an entry capsule and energy-absorbing impact sphere designed to contain and limit the acceleration of collected samples during Earth impact without a parachute. The spherical shaped impact sphere is composed of solid hexagonal and pentagonal foam-filled cells with hybrid composite, graphite-epoxy/Kevlar cell walls. Collected Martian samples will fit inside a smaller spherical sample container at the center of the EEV's cellular structure. Comparisons were made of analytical results obtained using MSC.Dytran with test results obtained from impact tests performed at NASA Langley Research Center for impact velocities from 30 to 40 m/s. Acceleration, velocity, and deformation results compared well with the test results. The correlated finite element model was then used for simulations of various off-nominal impact scenarios. Off-nominal simulations at an impact velocity of 40 m/s included a rotated cellular structure impact onto a flat surface, a cellular structure impact onto an angled surface, and a cellular structure impact onto the corner of a step.

Billings, Marcus Dwight↗
NASA NTRS2000

A 3-D Coupled CFD-DSMC Solution Method With Application to the Mars Sample Return Orbiter

A method to obtain coupled Computational Fluid Dynamics-Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (CFD-DSMC), 3-D flow field solutions for highly blunt bodies at low incidence is presented and applied to one concept of the Mars Sample Return Orbiter vehicle as a demonstration of the technique. CFD is used to solve the high-density blunt forebody flow defining an inflow boundary condition for a DSMC solution of the afterbody wake flow. By combining the two techniques in flow regions where most applicable, the entire mixed flow field is modeled in an appropriate manner.

Glass, Christopher E.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Penetrator role in Mars sample strategy

The application of the penetrator to a Mars Return Sample Mission (MRSM) has direct advantages to meet science objectives and mission safety. Based on engineering data and work currently conducted at Ball Aerospace Systems Division, the concept of penetrators as scientific instruments is entirely practical. The primary utilization of a penetrator for MRSM would be to optimize the selection of the sample site location and to help in selection of the actual sample to be returned to Earth. It is recognized that the amount of sample to be returned is very limited, therefore the selection of the sample site is critical to the success of the mission. The following mission scenario is proposed. The site selection of a sample to be acquired will be performed by science working groups. A decision will be reached and a set of target priorities established based on data to give geochemical, geophysical and geological information. The first task of a penetrator will be to collect data at up to 4 to 6 possible landing sites. The penetrator can include geophysical, geochemical, geological and engineering instruments to confirm that scientific data requirements at that site will be met. This in situ near real-time data, collected prior to final targeting of the lander, will insure that the sample site is both scientifically valuable and also that it is reachable within limits of the capability of the lander.

Boynton, William↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Performance Analysis and Data Processing for the Mars Sample Recovery Helicopter in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 25-ft Space Simulator

On April 19, 2021, Ingenuity became the first helicopter to fly on Mars at Jezero Crater, completing a total of 72 flights by the end of its mission. The success of Ingenuity resulted in various research efforts to further explore Mars via vertical flight, including two optimized Ingenuity-sized helicopters proposed to retrieve samples for the 2028 Mars Sample Return mission. To aid in the design process for the two proposed Sample Retrieval Helicopters, both heritage and optimized, increased diameter rotors were tested at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the 25-ft Space Simulator. Three test campaigns were performed using the Ingenuity rotors and optimized Sample Retrieval Helicopter (SRH) rotors for several rotor speeds, densities, configurations, and collectives to identify performance limitations. These three test campaigns included the Ingenuity Engineering Design Model 1 (EDM-1) with and without a cruciform box, Transonic Rotor Test (TRT) rig, and SRH Dual Rotor Test (DRT). Experimental setup, test matrix, data processing, data quality, and performance results for EDM-1, TRT, and DRT campaigns are presented and discussed. Experimental results from the test campaigns will aid in future experimental methods and validation efforts for planetary rotorcraft exploration.

Data Processing↗
NASA NTRS2018

The Importance of Mars Samples in Constraining the Geological and Geophysical Processes on Mars and the Nature of Its Crust, Mantle, and Core

In situ compositional and mineralogical measurements on the Martian surface, combined with analyses of Martian meteorites, indicate that most igneous rocks are lavas and volcaniclastic rocks of basaltic composition and cumulates of ultramafic composition. Alkaline rocks are common in Early Hesperian terranes and tholeiitic rocks dominate younger Amazonian martian meteorites. Very uncommon feldspathic rocks represent the ultimate fractionation products, while granitoid rocks have not been identified. The impact-driven delivery mechanism for the Martian meteorites biases in favor of more competent samples - young, igneous rocks - and against rocks that are more representative of the Martian crust. Comparisons of rock types found among the meteorites to those documented by landed missions demonstrates this bias unequivocally; furthermore, of the over 100 martian lithologies represented by the martian meteorites, only one (NWA 7034 and pairs) is a regolith breccia.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2019

Mission analysis for a potential Mars Sample Return campaign in the 2020's

The Mars 2020 mission, currently under development by NASA, plans to acquire and cache carefully-selected rock and regolith samples from the surface of Mars for potential future return. NASA and ESA are jointly studying options for returning those samples to Earth with missions launching in the 2020s. This paper demonstrates a method for modeling the various campaign elements, synthesizing coordinated campaign timelines, and assuring trajectory feasibility in the presence of many constraints, and finally optimizing towards mission success. Options for complete sample return campaigns in multiple launch and arrival opportunities are explored and compared.

Huesing, Jakob↗