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Completed TRL 3 (started at 2, targeting 4)
One approach to reducing the cost of landing on Mars is to simplify the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) system architecture as much as possible. In the limit, this would eliminate parachutes, propulsion, and other deployable decelerators from the EDL architecture and only do a hard landing, such as in the DS-2 probe design. This can subject the landing system to on the order of 10,000G of landing deceleration. Other intermediate architectures are possible, such as including only descent decelerators and crushable impact attenuators; this can limit impact decelerations to on the order of 500 to 2000G. This project has analyzed several points in this trade space in order to design EDL architectures that could deliver between 3.5 to 30 kg of science instruments to the surface of Mars. Crushable impact attenuator structures were developed and evaluated in drop tests to validate models of impact deceleration. Maturity of a novel thermal protection system (TPS) material called soft PICA (S-PICA) was also advanced under this project, to reduce the cost and mass of the TPS for small, low-cost Mars entry systems. Multiple versions of the entire EDL system with a rigid SHIELD were sized to allow integration of up to four entry systems on an ESPA ring to deliver multiple landers in a single mission.
Key goals for future Mars exploration include improving the accessibility of the Mars surface and increasing the frequency of opportunities for surface access. This requires significant reduction in the cost of all aspects of Mars missions, including EDL. Simplification of EDL architectures is one approach to this, which is applicable in particular to small payloads that can be ruggedized for large forces imparted by high-speed landing. EDL architecture studies from this project are characterizing EDL architecture needs implied by the 2023 report of the MEPAG Mars Concurrent Exploration Science Analysis Group (MCE-SAG), to set the stage for future work to enable low-cost implementations of landed science investigations suggested by the MCE-SAG report.
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