Mars Deployable Decelerators Capability Roadmap Summary

Abstract

The Strategic Objectives of the Vision for Space Exploration call for the continued access to planetary surfaces, with future development including human landings on both the Moon and Mars. In order to plan for future mission development, NASA created Capability Roadmap Teams to provide information on the present and projected state of technology for a preliminary mission set. The teams were comprised of NASA, Academia, and Industry representatives. This paper summarizes the Capability Roadmap activity with respect to aerodynamic deceleration for Mars Landers. Information presented in this paper was developed under the Human Planetary Landing Systems and Robotic Access to Planetary Surfaces Capability Roadmap teams and concerns technology development necessary to increase lander size from current limits. The current limit of experience for Mars landing is on the order of 1 metric ton (1000 kg) entry mass, with less than 20% of this devoted to science payload. Planned future landers require significant increases in science payload mass and eventual inclusion of humans. Recent work on improvements to the textile decelerator performance for Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) could contribute to increased landed payloads. This paper describes the current state of technology for inflatable aeroshells, inflatable high-supersonic decelerators (Hypercone), large supersonic parachutes, and very large subsonic parachutes as related to Mars EDL. This paper also attempts to summarize necessary development activity and projected timelines for advancements in Mars EDL capabilities using these technologies.