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Results for “Mars Science (MSL) Laboratory”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 523 records · Page 29
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2013

Performance of the Mechanically Pumped Fluid Loop Rover Heat Rejection System Used for Thermal Control of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover on the Surface of Mars

The challenging range of landing sites for which the Mars Science Laboratory Rover was designed, required a rover thermal management system that is capable of keeping temperatures controlled across a wide variety of environmental conditions. On the Martian surface where temperatures can be as cold as -123 C and as warm as 38 C, the Rover relies upon a Mechanically Pumped Fluid Loop (MPFL) Rover Heat Rejection System (RHRS) and external radiators to maintain the temperature of sensitive electronics and science instruments within a -40 C to +50 C range. The RHRS harnesses some of the waste heat generated from the Rover power source, known as the Multi Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), for use as survival heat for the rover during cold conditions. The MMRTG produces 110 Watts of electrical power while generating waste heat equivalent to approximately 2000 Watts. Heat exchanger plates (hot plates) positioned close to the MMRTG pick up this survival heat from it by radiative heat transfer and supply it to the rover. This design is the first instance of use of a RHRS for thermal control of a rover or lander on the surface of a planet. After an extremely successful landing on Mars (August 5), the rover and the RHRS have performed flawlessly for close to an earth year (half the nominal mission life). This paper will share the performance of the RHRS on the Martian surface as well as compare it to its predictions.

Mars↗
NASA NTRS2013

Curiosity's Autonomous Surface Safing Behavior Design

The safing routines on all robotic deep-space vehicles are designed to put the vehicle in a power and thermally safe configuration, enabling communication with the mission operators on Earth. Achieving this goal is made a little more difficult on Curiosity because the power requirements for the core avionics and the telecommunication equipment exceed the capability of the single power source, the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. This drove the system design to create an operational mode, called "sleep mode", where the vehicle turns off most of the loads in order to charge the two Li-ion batteries. The system must keep the vehicle safe from over-heat and under-heat conditions, battery cell failures, under-voltage conditions, and clock failures, both while the computer is running and while the system is sleeping. The other goal of a safing routine is to communicate. On most spacecraft, this simply involves turning on the receiver and transmitter continuously. For Curiosity, Earth is above the horizon only a part of the day for direct communication to the Earth, and the orbiter overpass opportunities only occur a few times a day. The design must robustly place the Rover in a communicable condition at the correct time. This paper discusses Curiosity's autonomous safing behavior and describes how the vehicle remains power and thermally safe while sleeping, as well as a description of how the Rover communicates with the orbiters and Earth at specific times.

MSL↗
NASA NTRS2014

The Curiosity Mars Rover's Fault Protection Engine

The Curiosity Rover, currently operating on Mars, contains flight software onboard to autonomously handle aspects of system fault protection. Over 1000 monitors and 39 responses are present in the flight software. Orchestrating these behaviors is the flight software's fault protection engine. In this paper, we discuss the engine's design, responsibilities, and present some lessons learned for future missions.

flight software↗
NASA NTRS2012

Implementing the Mars Science Laboratory Terminal Descent Sensor Field Test Campaign

Overall, the MSL TDS Field Test campaign was very successful. TDS was shown to perform extremely well over the required operational envelope. Early BB TDS field tests uncovered a number of issues, but none that invalidated the TDS design or implementation. EM TDS tests uncovered minor things of interest, but nothing of concern. Value of testing hardware in the field was demonstrated and significantly contributed to the overall TDS V&V effort. Over the 5-plus year field test campaign, numerous lessons were learned that will inform future field test efforts.

Terminal Descent Sensor↗
NASA NTRS2010

Test and Delivery of the Chemin Mineralogical Instrument for Mars Science Laboratory

The CheMin mineralogical instrument on MSL will return quantitative powder X-ray diffraction data (XRD) and qualitative X-ray fluorescence data (XRF; 14<Z<92) from scooped soil samples and drilled rock powders collected on the Mars surface. The geometry of the source, sample, and detector is shown. A transmission geometry was chosen so that diffracted intensities in the low-20 region (5-15 deg), important for phyllosilicate identification, could be detected.

Blake, D. F.↗
NASA NTRS2007

JPL Power Systems for Current Planned Missions

The viewgraph presentation includes fact sheets, instrument lists, and mission parameters for 13 future missions. Those missions include Moon Mineralogy Mapping (MMM), Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), New Millennium--Space Technology-8 (ST-8), Ocean Salinity Mapping Orbiter (Aquarius), Ocean Surface Topology Mission (OSTM), Asteroid Rendezvous Mission-SEP (Dawn), Mars Scout Lander Mission (Phoenix), Solar Powered Jupiter Orbiter (Juno), Earth orbiting carbon observatory (OCO), planet finder observatory (Kepler), far infrared/sub-millimeter telescope (Hershel), Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and Mars Science Laboratory-Rover (MSL). The presentation also contains a table of current missions and instruments.

Phoenix↗
NASA NTRS2019

The Mineralogical Record of Ancient Fluvio-Lacustrine Environments in Gale Crater as Measured by the MSL CheMin Instrument

The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover landed in Gale crater in August 2012 to investigate early Hesperian-aged sedimentary rocks on the lower slopes of Aeolis Mons (i.e., Mount Sharp) that show variations in phyllosilicates, hematite, and sulfates from orbital reflectance spectroscopy, suggesting changes in ancient aqueous environments. During the Eighth International Conference on Mars in July 2014, Curiosity was still traversing the Bradbury group on the plains of Gale crater (Aeolis Palus) and had only analyzed four samples in its internal laboratories. Soon after Mars 8, Curiosity began its investigation of Mount Sharp and has since driven through ~350 m of vertical stratigraphy, the majority of which is part of the Murray formation. The Murray fm is comprised primarily of laminated mudstone with occasional sandstone and heterolithic facies and represents a long-lived fluvio-lacustrine environment. Curiosity has analyzed 13 drilled rock samples from the Murray formation and 4 from the ancient eolian Stimson fm with the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument. Here, we discuss the mineralogy of all fluvio-lacustrine samples analyzed to date and what these results tell us about sources of the sediments, aqueous environments, and habitability of ancient Gale crater.

Rampe, E. B.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Mars Science Laboratory Focused Technology Program Overview

This paper describes how the MSL-FT program functions to ensure that the needed technology is identified, developed, matured to TRL 6, and infused in the MSL mission, in a systematic fashion that will meet the mission's objectives innovatively and within budget. The paper describes the mission's technical and project challenges, and outlines the process, procedures, tools and people involved in meeting those challenges. The paper also discusses the technology certification process required to demonstrate that technology deliverables perform adequately and in a predictable fashion to successful infusion into the MSL Flight System.

program management↗