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Completed TRL 6 (started at 5, targeting 6)
There is currently great interest in flying science missions to the outer planets, to study either the gas giants themselves or one or more of their moons. A key component of such missions is typically a “moon tour”, where flybys of the moons are used to decelerate the spacecraft “for free”, without using propellant. However, moon tours require many such flybys, and so are complicated to design. The aim of this IRAD is to develop visualization techniques to guide the analyst in the intelligent design of outer planet moon tours, allowing rapid determination of the key parameters (number of flybys of each moon and total flight time) of a tour.
This tool will be applicable to outer planet missions during new business pursuits (proposal, pre-Phase A, and MDL runs), where speed of solution generation is key, through requirements definition (Phase A/B), into pre-launch preparation (Phase C/D), and potentially design of extended missions.
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This is early/mid-stage (TRL 6) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.
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