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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2018

Thermal Operability Improvements for the Mars 2020 Rover Surface Mission

The Mars 2020 Rover is scheduled to land on Mars on February 18, 2021. One of the primary mission objectives for the Mars 2020 Rover is to perform in-situ science and collect a set of Martian regolith samples for possible future return to Earth. In order to meet mission requirements, 20 samples must be collected, assessed, and sealed during the prime mission (1.5 Martian years, approximately 1000 Sols). This requires that the Mars 2020 Rover operate in a much more efficient and autonomous manner than its predecessor, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Rover, Curiosity. The thermal designs of both Curiosity and the Mars 2020 Rover utilize warmup heaters to bring the actuators and cameras, located on the outside of the vehicle, up to their operating temperatures prior to use. These heaters consume energy during the mission. The Rover energy balance, between energy production and consumption, must be maintained in order to keep the mission moving safely forward. Increased efficiency in the way this warmup heater energy is allocated and used in the Mars 2020 Rover operations plan will result in more energy available for science and engineering activities. This paper discusses the improvements that were made in both hardware and software to improve the way the Mars 2020 Rover will operate thermally on Mars.

Lee, Chern-Jiin↗
NASA NTRS2019

Common Power and Energy Storage Solutions to Support Lunar and Mars Surface Exploration Missions

Future human exploration missions on the moon and Mars will require a new generation of power sources to sustain crew members and leverage in-situ resources. Long-duration human missions to the lunar and Martian surface will likely include large-scale landers, crew habitats, pressurized rovers, and in-situ propellant production plants. The power demands for these surface elements, whether on the moon or Mars, will be similar starting with robotic precursor missions in the multi-kilowatt range scaling to 10s of kilowatts as the crew presence expands and local propellant production is established. While the power requirements may be similar, the vastly different environments on the two surfaces present unique challenges for power generation and storage systems. Candidate technologies to satisfy the surface power needs include deployable solar arrays, regenerative fuel cells, and small fission reactors. This paper presents strategies for power system architectures with elements that can be used on the moon and are extensible to Mars with features that make them resilient to either environment.

Mason, Lee↗
NASA NTRS2003

Solar array development for the surface of Mars

JPL's missions to Mars have revealed factors that have an adverse impact on the performance of Mars Surface Solar Arrays. These factors included a spectrum shift toward the red wavelengths, atmospheric scattering and absorption and an accumulation of Mars surface dust on the arrays. All of these factors will reduce the power generated from state of the art triple junction solar cells used by earth orbiting satellites. This paper will report the results of JPL supported work conducted by US solar array manufacturers to increase the performance of solar arrays for future Mars surface missions. JPL awarded four vendors contracts to evaluate methods of improving power generation on the surface of Mars. These four contracts cover the redesign of the existing triple junction solar cell, modifying solar simulator output to match the Mars surface spectrum and techniques to control or remove dust from the surface of the arrays. The methodology and results of this evaluation will be presented in this paper.

Mars solar arrays↗
NASA NTRS2018

Mars 2020 Surface Mission Modeling Landing Site Thermal Environments

This paper presents work done by the Mars 2020 Mission Planning Team to characterize landing site thermal environments. A process was developed to take in ground temperature simulation data for each landing site and efficiently discretize it into six thermal environment bins. The Mars 2020 Thermal Team then performed detailed heater and energy modeling in each of those environments. The heater modeling results were implemented into a Monte Carlo based surface mission model to understand mission performance impacts. The Mars 2020 Instrument Teams used the results to inform their design and to better understand how the thermal conditions at each landing site affected their instruments.

Lange, Robert D.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Mars 2020 Surface Mission Modeling Landing Site Thermal Environments

This paper presents work done by the Mars 2020 Mission Planning Team to characterize landing site thermal environments. A process was developed to take in ground temperature simulation data for each landing site and efficiently discretize it into six thermal environment bins. The Mars 2020 Thermal Team then performed detailed heater and energy modeling in each of those environments. The heater modeling results were implemented into a Monte Carlo based surface mission model to understand mission performance impacts. The Mars 2020 Instrument Teams used the results to inform their design and to better understand how the thermal conditions at each landing site affected their instruments.

Lange, Robert D.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Mars 2020 Surface Mission Modeling: Landing Site Thermal Environments

This paper presents work done by the Mars 2020 Mission Planning Team to characterize landing site thermal environments. A process was developed to take in ground temperature simulation data for each landing site and efficiently discretize it into a handful of thermal bin environments. The Mars 2020 Thermal Team then performed detailed heater and energy modeling in each of those environments. The heater modeling results were implemented into a Monte Carlo based surface mission model to understand mission performance impacts. The Mars 2020 Instrument Teams used the results to inform their design and to better understand how the thermal conditions at each landing site affected their instruments.

Lange, Robert D.↗
NASA NTRS2021

Assessing Relay Communications for Mars Sample Return Surface Mission Concepts

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign is a 3-mission campaign concept supported by NASA and ESA to return samples from the Mars surface. MSR will, for the firsttime ever, present a need to communicate with multiple surfaceassets that are co-located on Mars in a coordinated effort toaccomplish the unified objective of fetching, transporting, andreturning samples from Mars. Currently, Mars surface assetsrelay data to and from Earth using a number of orbiters inwhat’s known as the Mars Relay Network (MRN). This networkis characterized by a small number of surface assets distributedacross the Martian globe and a larger number of orbiters toprovide relay services. As of June 2020, there are two surfaceassets for which five orbiters are providing relay. During theMSR Campaign, there will be two rovers and a lander that allwill require relay communication from a small number of Marsorbiters to meet the aggressive MSR timeline. The inversion ofthe current MRN paradigm, a system of many surface assetsrequiring relay and few orbiters to provide relay, necessitatesthe unique challenge of optimally allocating relay passes tomaximize the operational capability of all assets. The allocationmust consider a large number of trade variables includingMars asset operational requirements and Earth ground systemconstraints, including staffing schedules, operations planningacross time zones, and more. To address these telecommunicationchallenges, the Mars Asset Relay Mission Link AllocationDesign Environment (MARMLADE) tool was developed. Itis a MATLAB-based tool to assign orbiter passes or Direct-From-Earth (DFE) links to each of the three surface assets andquantify the operational efficiency of each surface asset.MARMLADE uses a data set of simulated Mars relay orbitergeometry and telecommunication capabilities provided by JPL’sTelecom Orbit Analysis and Simulation Tool (TOAST) softwareto compute which asset should get each pass based on a seriesof heuristics and predictions of all assets’ states. WithinMARMLADE, the user can provide inputs including the optionfor time-based pass splitting, fixed FWD data rate capabilities,DFE communication capabilities, and link parameters allowingfor the assessment of complex operations and hardware tradesusing surface mission operational efficiency as a primary figureof merit. As the MSR mission concepts continue to mature,MARMLADE is being used to assess ability of all MSR elementsto meet the surface mission timeline requirements and to provide relay link allocations to each of the MSR surface assets.

Lee, Charles↗
NASA NTRS2017

Human Mars Ascent Configuration and Design Sensitivities

Human missions to Mars may utilize several small cabins where crew members could live for days up to a couple of weeks. At the end of a Mars surface mission the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) crew cabin would carry the crew to their destination in orbit in a matter of hours or days. Other small cabins in support of a Mars mission would include pressurized rovers that allow crew members to travel great distances from their primary habitat on Mars while unconstrained by time limits of typical EVAs. An orbital crew taxi could allow for exploration of the moons of Mars with minimum impact to the primary Earth-Mars transportation systems. A common crew cabin design that can perform in each of these applications is desired and could reduce the overall mission cost. However, for the MAV, the crew cabin size and mass can have a large impact on vehicle design and performance. The total ascent vehicle mass drives performance requirements for the Mars descent systems and the Earth to Mars transportation elements. Minimizing MAV mass is a priority and minimizing the crew cabin size and mass is one way to do that. This paper explores the benefits and impacts of using a common crew cabin design for the MAV. Results of a MAV configuration trade study will be presented along with mass and performance estimates for the selected design.

Polsgrove, Tara P.↗
NASA NTRS2021

Assessing Relay Communications for Mars Sample Return Surface Mission Concepts

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign would be a 3-mission campaign concept supported by NASA and ESA to return samples from the Mars surface. MSR would, for the first time ever, present a need to communicate with multiple surface assets that are co-located on Mars in a coordinated effort to accomplish the unified objective of fetching, transporting, and returning samples from Mars. Currently, Mars surface assets relay data to and from Earth using a number of orbiters in what’s known as the Mars Relay Network (MRN). This network is characterized by a small number of surface assets distributed across the Martian globe and a larger number of orbiters to provide relay services. As of June 2020, there are two surface assets for which five orbiters are providing relay. During the MSR Campaign, there would be two rovers and a lander that all would require relay communication from a small number of Mars orbiters to meet the aggressive MSR timeline. The inversion of the current MRN paradigm, a system of many surface assets requiring relay and few orbiters to provide relay, necessitates the unique challenge of optimally allocating relay passes to maximize the operational capability of all assets. The allocation must consider a large number of trade variables including Mars asset operational requirements and Earth ground system constraints, including staffing schedules, operations planning across time zones, and more. To address these telecommunication challenges, the Mars Asset Relay Mission Link Allocation Design Environment (MARMLADE) tool was developed. It is a MATLAB-based tool to assign orbiter passes or Direct-From-Earth (DFE) links to each of the three surface assets and quantify the operational efficiency of each surface asset.MARMLADE uses a data set of simulated Mars relay orbiter geometry and telecommunication capabilities provided by JPL’s Telecom Orbit Analysis and Simulation Tool (TOAST) software to compute which asset should get each pass based on a series of heuristics and predictions of all assets’ states. Within MARMLADE, the user can provide inputs including the option for time-based pass splitting, fixed FWD data rate capabilities, DFE communication capabilities, and link parameters allowing for the assessment of complex operations and hardware trades using surface mission operational efficiency as a primary figure of merit. As the MSR mission concepts continue to mature, MARMLADE is being used to assess ability of all MSR elements to meet the surface mission timeline requirements and to provide relay link allocations to each of the MSR surface assets.This paper will describe the motivation and design of the MARMLADE tool and how it is being used to perform campaign and mission level trades, generate requirements, and support development of the MSR surface mission scenarios.

Lee, Charles↗
NASA NTRS2017

Mars 2020 Surface Mission Performance Modeling: Part 3. Mission Performance Modeling Approach and Results

We have developed a comprehensive model of the Mars 2020 rover surface mission used to identify and evaluate mission productivity and operability challenges and opportunities. The surface mission performance model combines many aspects of rover design, operations approach, system behaviors, and mission constraints into an integrated model of surface mission performance. The surface mission model applies monte-carlo methodologies in order to investigate the key sources of mission performance variability and their effects with respect to overall mission performance. Our modeling efforts aims to investigate and inform engineering design and development efforts, as well as the landing site selection process led by the Mars science community. We believe that an integrated mission performance model such as this is important to aligning engineering and science efforts across the project.

Ono, Masahiro↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Human Missions to Mars; Surface Concept of Operations for Dec 2020 COSPAR PP Workshop

The purpose of this presentation is to provide insight into NASA’s current thinking for human exploration on the surface of Mars as part of a December 2020 joint NASA/COSPAR workshop addressing planetary protection issues. This presentation has two major sections. The first section provides a general overview of human Mars missions. This includes major mission events typical of these missions and anticipated range of mission durations. The second section summarizes expected environmental conditions and operations on the surface of Mars and some of the planetary protection related question of current interest in planning for these human missions.

Mars↗
NASA NTRS2022

The Mars 2020 Ground Data System Architecture

The Mars 2020 Mission’s primary objective is to collect 20 geographically unique samples during its prime mission of one and a quarter Martian years, or just over 2 Earth years. Mission planners determined the project needed to develop a system that would enable the operations team to analyze engineering and science data, make science decisions, select viable rover targets at a millimeter resolution and validate an uplink bundle for a car sized rover with more complex science instruments than any previous Mars surface mission. All this had to be done within a five hour time frame. Doing this with a small team would be a challenge, but this had to be accomplished by a large team of engineers and scientists located across North America and Europe. Achieving this level of operational efficiency was unheard of in the prime mission. In addition, the mission had another set of requirements that had nothing to do with surface operations; the Mars 2020 Ground Data System (GDS) was also expected to comply with a new set of security requirements to keep up with the ever changing cybersecurity landscape. The Mars 2020 Ground Data System (GDS) is a re-architected version of the Mars Science Laboratory GDS. The primary goal was to integrate the lessons learned from previous Mars surface missions, accommodate a set of new requirements and capabilities required to ensure mission success, and comply with a new set of cybersecurity controls. The new architecture includes several unique qualities including a data lake, language-agnostic system-wide event-based operations, containerization, automated deployment, network segmentation, infrastructure-as-code, API-driven interfaces, and the first Mars surface GDS to operate primarily in the cloud. The new architecture enabled greater access to the system’s data, tighter integration with the operations team, and a higher level of traceability. The availability of the data also enabled a new set of capabilities previously not possible on surface missions. These new capabilities include an autonomous data to information, pipeline for downlink analysis, horizontal scaling of science data processing capabilities, autonomous round trip data tracking of science and engineering data, integration of flight system state into the tactical planning cycle, high fidelity targeting utilizing kinematic data, and hierarchical image and 3d meshes data representations. This paper will introduce the requirements for the Mars 2020 Mission, the heritage architecture, and the rationale for the changes to achieve the new architecture. The paper will continue to describe the fundamental changes made to the GDS architecture, how these changes enabled a more tightly integrated GDS, and the new capabilities that were enabled by the new architecture. The paper will conclude with the lessons learned from the process of rearchitecting a heritage GDS system and from the first 200 days of operations supporting over 800 users from around the world.

Lopez-Roig, Reynaldo↗
NASA NTRS2015

Mars Hybrid Propulsion System Trajectory Analysis: Cargo Missions - Part II

NASA's Human Spaceflight Architecture Team is developing a reusable hybrid transportation architecture in which both chemical and electric propulsion systems are used to send crew and cargo to Mars destinations such as Phobos, Deimos, the surface of Mars, and other orbits around Mars. By combining chemical and electrical propulsion into a single spaceship and applying each where it is more effective, the hybrid architecture enables a series of Mars trajectories that are more fuel-efficient than an all chemical architecture without significant increases in flight times. This paper shows the feasibility of the hybrid transportation architecture to pre-deploy cargo to Mars and Phobos in support of the Evolvable Mars Campaign crew missions. The analysis shows that the hybrid propulsion stage is able to deliver all of the current manifested payload to Phobos and Mars through the first three crew missions. The conjunction class trajectory also allows the hybrid propulsion stage to return to Earth in a timely fashion so it can be reused for additional cargo deployment. The 1,100 days total trip time allows the hybrid propulsion stage to deliver cargo to Mars every other Earth-Mars transit opportunity. For the first two Mars surface mission in the Evolvable Mars Campaign, the short trip time allows the hybrid propulsion stage to be reused for three round-trip journeys to Mars, which matches the hybrid propulsion stage's designed lifetime for three round-trip crew missions to the Martian sphere of influence.

Chai, Patrick R.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Environmental Control and Life Support Technology Development for Exploration: 2020 to 2021 Overview

This paper provides an overview of NASA supported activities developing Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLSS) technologies in the following capability areas: life support, environmental monitoring, fire safety, and logistics. NASA has been refining technology needs for deep space missions including Gateway, lunar surface, Mars transit, and Mars surface missions. Validating technologies in relevant environments, both in low earth orbit (LEO) and ground tests is critical in understanding technology performance and long duration performance. On-orbit and ground tests inform NASA’s technology decisions to fill exploration gaps. NASA has multiple technology projects across the technology readiness spectrum with potential to fill or partially fill exploration gaps. For each capability area, this paper will describe select capability gaps, NASA technology project maturation over the past year, and how key performance parameters (KPPs) are being used to measure the degree of capability gap closure. KPPs are evolving but they still provide a useful measure in communicating progress and identifying development needs to fill exploration gaps. The intent is to provide a very high-level overview describing the strategic approach to gap closure and provide references to additional technical details, progress, and KPPs.

Life Support↗