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In cooperation with NASA's Solar System Exploration Subcommittee (SSES) the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is conducting a series of studies to assess the feasibility of planetary science missions proposed for launch in the 2006-2010 time frame and to prioritize technology development steps that will enable these missions.
Significant new science at Venus, particularly related to surface, interior, and surface/atmosphere interactions can be realized with surface platforms performing in-situ measurements. This white paper presents summary results of a Venus Surface Platforms Study performed with VEXAG support. The results suggest long-lived platforms, platforms at several locations taking simultaneous or coordinated measurements. platforms with greater sophistication than currently possible with Venus surface assets, and surface mobility will enable the new science needed per guiding documents such as the Planetary Decadal Survey Report. This white paper summary of the study reports on key relationships between the capabilities noted, the underlying technologies that will enable those capabilities, and the science to be expected with the new capabilities.
To understand the NASA needs for quantum-sensing technologies and the capabilities developed internal and external to NASA, a workshop was held on September 27 through 29, 2022, in Newport News, VA. This workshop brought together senior leadership within NASA, technical experts within the quantum sensing community, NASA scientists and potential end-users of quantum-sensing technologies, and external stakeholders. This document contains the papers and presentations given at the Workshop.
The Dual Exploration Architecture is a mission concept that combines remote sensing and in-situ observations into a single mission to answer planetary science questions that can only be answered with both types of data. Adoption of dual exploration architectures may short circuit the long, slow cycle of missions to inaccessible bodies by eliminating the need for separate precursor and follow-up missions. Additionally, the dual architecture possesses inherent flexibility that enables the design of adaptive, event-driven missions that are very different from traditional, largely pre-planned missions. Five key observations about the state and trends of planetary science exploration lead us to the dual architecture: increasing complexity of observations; scarcity of future mission opportunities; desire to capture transitory events; continued miniaturization of spacecraft components; and the Mars exploration cycle. Our goal in this study is to explore missions that can only happen using the dual architecture concept and find technology development needs that must be filled for those missions to compete. A survey of historical and current missions finds that opportunities for exploration are becoming less frequent, causing the flexibility and dual-nature elements of each mission to become more common. The dual exploration architecture takes these trends to their far conclusion, attempting to eliminate precursor and follow-up missions while still returning more scientific payoff. A study of the future of planetary science goals through the decadal survey reveals broad applicability of dual missions to solve mysteries that cannot be answered with a traditional mission architecture. These missions fall into three broad classes: choosing a local target from a global survey; dynamic/reactive science; and global in-situ networks. Two example missions of each class are notionally described. A deeper look at these dual architecture classes reveals four technology development needs that must be addressed for wide adoption of dual missions: passive landers; guided atmospheric probes; robust sensing packages; and small, precise orbital instruments. This study pursues a specific focus on two examples of such enabling technologies: the ChipSat and cold atom gravimetry. The ChipSat is a fully functional spacecraft-on-a-chip system that has broad versatility in the dual architecture mission space. Initial studies show that ChipSats could survive as passive impactor landers on bodies up to the size of Europa. Furthermore, COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) components could provide an in-situ sensor suite that readily answers a number of pressing planetary science questions. Cold atom gravimetry uses inertial sensors based on light-pulse atom interferometry in a small form factor to map the gravity field of a body to precision equaling what would normally require two full spacecraft to achieve. The cold atom gravimeter provides an example of how advanced remote sensing capability can enable dual missions by providing greater returns in a significantly smaller package. Using the above two technologies, we study an example dual-architecture mission to both characterize and sample the subsurface oceans at Europa. The greatest scientific return in terms of detecting extraterrestrial life is in those regions where Europa’s ice crust is thin. The identification of regions with thin ice should therefore precede the selection of surface targets and dispatch of probes to those targets. This two-step process, if accomplished by separate flagship-scale missions, might take decades. As a result, a combined mission to both identify thin areas of Europa’s ice and follow up with surface observations at those regions is a good candidate for the dual-exploration architecture. This example mission consists of an orbiter spacecraft carrying a cold atom gravimeter capable of sensing or inferring the ice thickness on regional to local scales, along with a number of ChipSat probes capable of landing on the moon. The small size and weight of the ChipSats allows large numbers of them to be carried, ensuring that enough can be dropped to ensure survival of a minimum number of probes and potentially allowing for the in-situ sampling of multiple locations on the moon. The example missions and Europa case study show that amazing scientific return can obtained from dual-exploration architecture missions with a single launch by breaking the long timescales of planetary exploration and providing the flexibility to capturing transitory events and collect data across the local, regional, and global scales.
Since our completing the NIAC Phase I NIAC on this Advanced Aerocapture System, NASA Langley Research Center has funded or supported a number of studies and code enhancements through its Center Innovation Fund (CIF) and NASA’s NSTGRO and Internship Programs to mature the analysis capabilities and quantify the merits of the MHD Aerocapture System technology. These efforts have resulted in a plug and play analysis capability for assessing MHD aerocapture system performance for arrival at many planetary bodies of interest. Our efforts have especially focused on the potential mass savings for improving the capacity for science observations at Neptune and Triton. A re-cent Forbes article published “‘Orbital mechanics is probably going to decide for us whether we go to Uranus or Neptune because we need to flyby Jupiter,’ said Kunio Sayanagi at Hampton University, Virginia, who also worked on the Neptune Odyssey proposal…. Exactly when a mission can be sent to Uranus, or Neptune, depends on the relative position of Jupiter, which can help give a spacecraft a gravitational slingshot. That drastically shortens the cruise phase.” [1] Since shortening the cruise phase is important for these science missions, any mass savings enabled by the MHD Aerocapture System could be reallocated to increasing Thermal Protection System mass to allow faster arrival speeds and/or for onboarding additional payloads such as science instruments, batteries, or propellant for conducting more science for longer durations in the desired orbits. The analysis steps and codes for conducting trades and sizing vehicles for aerocapture are as follows: Step 1 is to conduct aeroheating analysis using LAURA of the selected entry vehicle shape to identify locations on the forebody where ionization and flow velocity are sufficient for producing Lo-rentz forces. LAURA is a multiblock structured grid finite-volume CFD solver developed at the NASA Langley Research Center. [2] LAURA has been used for aerothermal analysis support of the entry, de-scent and landing (EDL) phase of interplanetary missions over the last three decades [3-7]. Step 2 is to port the LAURA results into CFDWARP to calcu-late electrical and thermal conductivities of ionized flow for sizing MHD patch system and calculating Lorentz forces needed for controls analysis. CFDWARP is a CFD code that uses advanced nu-merical methods that enable the simulation of the full coupling between the aerodynamics, the magne-tohydrodynamics, and the non-neutral plasma sheaths. CFDWARP has the unique capability to simulate efficiently the non-neutral sheaths (near the electrodes) in coupled form with the quasi-neutral bulk MHD flow [8-11]. Step 3 is to link re-sults from LAURA and CFDWARP into POST2 for calculating entry trajectories and comparing MHD control results with other aerodynamic control strategies. The Program to Optimize Simulated Tra-jectories II (POST2) is a generalized point mass, discrete parameter targeting and optimization pro-gram. POST2 provides the capability to target and optimize point mass trajectories for multiple pow-ered or un-powered vehicles near an arbitrary rotat-ing, oblate planet [12]. Step 4: TPS sizing was per-formed using the Fully Implicit Ablation and Ther-mal-response code (FIAT) tool which computes the transient one-dimensional thermal response and surface thermochemistry of a multilayer stackup of thermal protection, bonding, and structural materi-als subject to aeroheating on one surface [13]. The sizing and margining methodology used was based on the approach documented by Mahzari and Milos [14] for the dual-layered heatshield for extreme entry environment technology (DL-HEEET) TPS concept. TPS analysis utilizes trajectory information from POST2. Using this step-wise plug and play MHD Aerocapture performance assessment process, our analysis targets a Neptune aerocapture trajectory that will place the spacecraft in an observation orbit for Triton. [15]. Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) control of a 4.5-meter diameter MSL-style capsule resulted in TPS mass savings of nearly 2000 kg when using an MHD system mass of under 200 kg. The flight path for a vehicle using the MHD control strategy has a much lower heat rate and heat load compared to the conventional aerodynamic aerocapture strategies known as bank angle con-trolled (BAC) and direct force controlled (DFC). Both BAC and DFC have heat rates significantly greater than 1500 W/cm2 typically used as an upper limit for PICA. Thus, DL-HEEET TPS concept was required for the BAC and DFC control strategies. However, considering the more benign environ-ments for the MHD case, additional TPS concepts with improved mass efficiency were also assessed. PICA was considered for the MHD controlled strat-egy since the maximum heat rate was well within the limits (<1500 W/cm2) of PICA. TPS sizing re-sulted in a significant mass reduction. The PICA layer for this sizing case was about 7.8 cm. As a point of reference, the Mars 2020 mission, which used this same PICA concept, had a PICA thickness of 3.18 cm [16]. The trajectories used for the TPS sizing originat-ed from the POST2 simulations. The current, I, to an electromagnet configuration can be manipulated to allow for active control of the vehicle. Manipula-tion of the current, I, changes the magnetic field, B, which affects the Lorentz force and therefore the MHD drag force on the vehicle. Our analysis in-cluded both open-loop and close-loop control. Closed-loop control will enable improved overall performance when taking into account mission level uncertainties, such as interplanetary delivery errors and atmospheric modeling uncertainties. The open-loop and closed-loop MHD control cases do not dip as deep into the atmosphere as the aerodynamic cases. Three types of aerodynamic-only approach-es are investigated: bank angle modulation (BAM), director force control (DFC), and Drag Modulated. BAM and DFC make use of vehicle aerodynamic angles to steer the vehicle. Thus, changing the aer-odynamic forces acting on the vehicle for control, aerodynamic drag modulated case requires a vary-ing drag area to modulate the drag force. The MHD drag modulated case modulates MHD generated drag force that adds to the aerodynamic drag. This higher atmospheric activation of drag forces by the MHD patch results in significantly less heat flux on the vehicle. The MHD technology will enable shorter cruise times and deceleration of larger payloads for increasing the capacity for science at the Ice Giants or for returning astronauts to Earth from cislunar space or from Mars. The purpose of this presentation is to provide more details about this work and to highlight plans for further research and development including a flight demonstration.
The research carried out in the Earth sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center will be the focus of the presentation. These research interests span the full breath of disciplines in Earth System Science. Branches and research groups focus on areas as diverse as planetary geomagnetics and atmospheric chemistry. There are 4 major laboratories in the directorate and 2 organizations that focus on scientific information technology. These laboratories focus on atmospheric sciences (atmospheric chemistry, climate and radiation, regional processes, atmospheric modeling), hydrological sciences (snow, ice, oceans, and seasonal-to-interannual prediction), terrestrial physics (geology, terrestrial biology, land-atmosphere interactions, geophysics), climate modeling (global warming, greenhouse gases, climate change). Two of the labs also have branches that focus on sensor development especially using lidar and microwave technologies. In the information technologies, areas of scientific and technical research, and expertise include massively parallel computers, technologies for high speed electronic networks, scientific visualization, information systems, archive and distribution systems, and information processing. Examples will be presented from each of these research disciplines.
Venus is one of the important planetary destinations for scientific exploration, but: The combination of extreme entry environment coupled with extreme surface conditions have made mission planning and proposal efforts very challenging. We present an alternate, game-changing approach (ADEPT) where a novel entry system architecture enables more benign entry conditions and this allows for greater flexibility and lower risk in mission design
Small satellites aren't anything particularly new. Earth orbiting small satellites go back 30 years or more. What is new is the proliferation and access to small satellite technologies and flight opportunities. This has been in large part due to the advent of the "cubesat" model, initially a means to develop student's engineering skills, but has since evolved into an industry and accepted method within government space agencies. Until very recently these smallsats were limited to Earth orbiting missions, but with the successful flight of the MarCO spacecraft and the upcoming launch of EM-1 cubesats, the Moon, Mars and beyond are now within reach. While all this is good news, we still have a ways to go before smallsats become true planetary science tools. One could argue that Deep Space 2 was the first planetary smallsat, launched in 1999 and having a mass of 2.3 kg (each probe) it hoped to demonstrate that "real" science could be done with a small (and less expensive) package. The DS2 failure shelved the idea of smallsats (even chilling some to "Class D" planetary missions in general) for nearly two decades. NASA has slowly come back around to smallsats for planetary missions, going so far as to support a range of mission studies (the Planetary Science Deep Space SmallSat Studies, or PSDS3, Program) and the creation of a new Program (SIMPLEx) to developed such missions for opportunistic flights. The MarCO success was hugely important in maintaining (and building) this forward momentum. However, we still have yet to demonstrate "real" science from a planetary smallsat and there are some fundamental disconnects between expectation and reality. This talk will discuss some of the opportunities and challenges that reside with planetary smallsats, focusing on two examples: LunaH-Map (the first SIMPLEx cubesat) and Aeolus (a Mars PSDS3 smallsat concept).
There are many facets to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for JPL is an organization of multiple responsibilities and broad scope, of diverse talents and great enterprise. The Laboratory's philosophy, mission, and goals have been shaped by its ties to the California Institute of Technology (JPL's parent organization) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (JPL's principal sponsor). JPL's activities for NASA in planetary, Earth, and space sciences currently account for almost 75 percent of the Laboratory's overall effort. JPL Research activities in the following areas are discussed: (1) deep space exploration; (2) telecommunications systems; (3) Earth observations; (4) advanced technology; (5) defense programs; and (6) energy and technology applications.
Planetary spacecraft are viewed through a troposphere that absorbs and delays radio signals propagating through it. Tropospheric water, in the form of vapor, cloud liquid, and precipitation, emits radio noise which limits satellite telemetry communication link performance. Even at X-band, rain storms have severely affected several satellite experiments including a planetary encounter. The problem will worsen with DSN implementation of Ka-band because communication link budgets will be dominated by tropospheric conditions. Troposphere-induced propagation delays currently limit VLBI accuracy and are significant sources of error for Doppler tracking. Additionally, the success of radio science programs such as satellite gravity wave experiments and atmospheric occultation experiments depends on minimizing the effect of water vapor-induced propagation delays. In order to overcome limitations imposed by the troposphere, the Deep Space Network has supported a program of radiometric remote sensing. Currently, water vapor radiometers (WVRs) and microwave temperature profilers (MTPs) support many aspects of the Deep Space Network operations and research and development programs. Their capability to sense atmospheric water, microwave sky brightness, and atmospheric temperature is critical to development of Ka-band telemetry systems, communication link models, VLBI, satellite gravity wave experiments, and radio science missions. During 1993, WVRs provided data for propagation model development, supported planetary missions, and demonstrated advanced tracking capability. Collection of atmospheric statistics is necessary to model and predict performance of Ka-band telemetry links, antenna arrays, and radio science experiments. Since the spectrum of weather variations has power at very long time scales, atmospheric measurements have been requested for periods ranging from one year to a decade at each DSN site. The resulting database would provide reliable statistics on daily, monthly, and seasonal variations. Only long-term monitoring will prevent biases from being introduced by an exceptionally wet or dry year. Support for planetary missions included tropospheric calibration for the recent Mars Observer gravity wave experiments and Ka-band link experiment (KaBLE). Additionally, several proposed radio science experiments such as profiling planetary atmospheres using satellite occultations and Ka-band gravitational wave searches require advanced radiometer technology development. Finally, there has been a consistent advanced technology program to advance satellite navigational and tracking capabilities. This year that included an experiment with radiometer based tropospheric calibration for a series of VLBI catalog measurements.
This paper presents a modular, reconfigurable robotic manipulator for autonomous in-space assembly. On-orbit and planetary surface assembly is a challenging domain that encompasses various technological thrusts to support human exploration, science, and technology demonstration missions. The system architecture presented here addresses the need for robotic assembly of structures in locations that prohibit constant human oversight and/or teleoperation. This system is capable of scheduling, reconfiguring itself, and executing structural assembly tasks with the ability to assess construction and correct errors during the assembly as needed. An example concept of operations is presented. Details of the mechanical and electrical design of the robotic modules as well as the dynamic modeling approach, control algorithms, and sensing and perception systems are also provided.
The Venusian atmosphere creates inhospitable temperature and pressure conditions for the surface of Venus, Earth’s twin planet, making in-situ measurements of any appreciable length difficult, expensive, and risky to obtain. Yet, because of the apparent youthfulness of Venus’ surface features, long-duration seismic observations are in high demand in order to determine and understand the dynamic processes taking place in lieu of plate tectonics. The Venus Airglow Measurements and Orbiter for Seismicity (VAMOS) mission concept would make use of the dense Venusian atmosphere as a medium to conduct seismic vibrations from the surface to the ionosphere. Here, the resulting atmospheric gravity waves and acoustic waves can be observed in the form of perturbations in airglow emissions, the basic principles for which have been demonstrated at Earth following a tsunami and at Venus with the European Venus Express’s Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) instrument. In addition, these observations would enable VAMOS to determine the crustal structure and ionospheric variability of Venus without approaching the surface or atmosphere themselves. Equipped with an instrument of modest size and mass, the baseline VAMOS spacecraft is designed to fit within a SmallSat form factor and travel to Venus predominantly under its own power. VAMOS would enter into an orbit uniquely suited for the longduration, full-disk staring observations required for seismic readings. VAMOS’ journey would be enabled by modern solar electric propulsion technology and SmallSat avionics, which allow the spacecraft to reach Venus and autonomously filter observation data on board to detect Venus-quake events. Currently, trade studies are being conducted to determine mission architecture robustness to launch and rideshare opportunities. Key spacecraft challenges for VAMOS, just as with many SmallSat-based mission concepts, include thermal and power management, onboard processing capabilities, telecommunications throughput, and propulsion technology. The VAMOS mission concept is being studied at JPL as part of the NASA Planetary Science Deep Space SmallSat Studies (PSDS3) program, which will not only produce a viable and exciting mission concept for a Venus SmallSat, but will have the opportunity to examine many issues facing the development of SmallSats for planetary exploration. These include SmallSat solar electric propulsion, autonomy, telecommunications, and resource management that can be applied to various inner solar system mission architectures.
Lidar is firmly entrenched in the family of remote sensing technologies that NASA is developing and using. Still a relatively new technology, lidar should continue to experience significant advances and progress. Lidar is used in each one of the major research themes, including planetary exploration, in the Earth Sciences Directorate at Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA has and will continue to generate new lidar applications from ground, air and space for both Earth science and planetary exploration.
A Mars Sample Return mission is the highest priority science mission for the next decade recommended by the recent Decadal Survey of Planetary Science, the key community input process that guides NASA's science missions. A feasibility study was conducted of a potentially simple and low cost approach to Mars Sample Return mission enabled by the use of new commercial capabilities. Previous studies of MSR have shown that landing an all up sample return mission with a high mass capacity lander is a cost effective approach. The approach proposed is the use of a SpaceX Dragon capsule to land the launch vehicle system that would return samples to Earth. This paper describes the mission and technology requirements impact on the launch vehicle system design, referred to as the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV).
A Mars Sample Return mission is the highest priority science mission for the next decade recommended by the recent Decadal Survey of Planetary Science, the key community input process that guides NASAs science missions. A feasibility study was conducted of a potentially simple and low cost approach to Mars Sample Return mission enabled by the use of developing commercial capabilities. Previous studies of MSR have shown that landing an all up sample return mission with a high mass capacity lander is a cost effective approach. The approach proposed is the use of an emerging commercially available capsule to land the launch vehicle system that would return samples to Earth. This paper describes the mission and technology requirements impact on the launch vehicle system design, referred to as the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV).
A pathfinder prototype unit and two flight power processing units (PPUs) are being developed by the Aerojet Rocketdyne Corporation in Redmond, Washington and ZIN Technologies in Cleveland, Ohio, in support of the NEXT-C Project. This project is being led by the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and will also yield two flight thrusters. This hardware is being considered to be provided as Government Furnished Equipment for the New Frontiers Program, and is applicable to a variety of planetary science missions and astrophysics science missions. The design of the NEXT-C PPU evolves from the hardware fabricated under the NEXT technology development project. The power processing unit operates from two sources: a wide input 80 to 160 V high-power bus and a nominal 28 V low-power bus. The unit includes six power supplies. Four power supplies (beam, accelerator, discharge, and neutralizer keeper) are needed for steady state operation, while two cathode heater power supplies (neutralizer and discharge) are utilized during thruster startup. The unit in total delivers up to 7 kW of regulated power to a single gridded-ion thruster. Significant modifications to the initial design include: high-power adaptive-delay control, upgrade of design to EEE-INST-002 compliance, telemetry accuracy improvements, incorporation of telemetry to detect plume-mode operation, and simplification of the design in select areas to improve manufacturability and commercialization potential. The project is presently in the prototype phase and preparing for qualification level environmental testing.
A mission/system study of Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) for early robotic planetary science mission applications has been conducted. Subject missions considered included a Mars orbiter with a Phobos and Deimos Rendezvous; a Comet Kopff Rendezvous; a Multiple Mainbelt Asteroid Rendezvous (MMBAR); an Asteroid (Vesta) Sample Return; a Trojan Asteroid (Odysseus) Rendezvous; and a Jupiter mini Grand Tour. The purpose of the study was to determine if 'near-term' NEP technology could be used on an early NEP flight to demonstrate the technologies while conducting a useful science mission. The analysis shows that, depending upon technology readiness date, the missions could be performed with low power NEP. The technology and system development costs associated with vehicle/stage development for a candidate mission are presented. The study assumed relatively mature space electric power and space electric propulsion technologies (more advanced technologies have been already shown by others to be enabling for many outer planetary missions). Thus, a very important first step in using NEP would be taken, which would contribute valuable solar system science, as well as reduce the risks associated with using NEP for more demanding outer planetary science mission applications.
Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) have been used to power NASA missions of various types throughout the past five decades. The most recent RTG iteration, used for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, is the Multi-Mission RTG (MMRTG), which is currently the only spaceflight-qualified system available. The U.S. planetary science community has expressed a desire for more power system options to be available to accommodate a range of ambitious future mission concepts across the solar system. Recent advancements in thermoelectric (TE) materials technology have raised a potential for significantly increased efficiency in future RTGs, which helped spur a recent in-depth NASA study of options for future systems. A “next-generation” RTG study was conducted to develop new RTG concepts that could meet the needs of planetary science missions through the 2030s and beyond. A Next-Generation RTG would aim to extend the types of potential NASA missions able to be supported, while fulfilling requirements related to technical risk and schedule. In this study, 21 potential thermoelectric couple configurations were analyzed by considering various high-performance, high-temperature TE materials and segmentation techniques that maximize convertor efficiency and power density. System modularity was explored, and found to be a promising means to offer improved flexibility for NASA mission concepts with varying scope and power requirements. This paper presents the results of the study, demonstrating the viability of developing an updated RTG system design, and defining conceptual system approaches for a new, potentially revolutionary RTG.