(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012-06)
Dutta, Soumyo; Mahzari, Milad; White, Todd R.; Braun, Robert D.
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission’s
instrumentation will enable accurate reconstruction of
the vehicle’s entry, descent, and landing (EDL)
performance including the trajectory, the observed
atmosphere, aerodynamics, aeroheating, and heatshield
material response. The objective of this paper is to
develop methodologies for an integrated approach to
the reconstruction of the vehicle’s EDL performance.
Two estimation approaches are presented: Serial and
Concurrent. The serial approach is demonstrated by
application to the Mars Pathfinder flight data and
estimating trajectory and aeroheating performance.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-06)
Dutta, Soumyo; Clark, Ian G.; Russell, Ryan P.; Braun, Robert D.
The Phoenix Lander successfully landed on the surface of Mars on May 25, 2008. During the entry, descent and landing (EDL), the vehicle had instruments on-board that took sensed acceleration, angular rates and altimeter measurements. In this study, methodology used to reconstruct the trajectory and other EDL performance information using a statistical filter to process the observations from the sensors is demonstrated. A statistical filter estimates parameters simultaneously with the uncertainty in the estimates. The results presented here will include Phoenix’s event timeline, trajectory information, time-of-flight atmosphere and aerodynamic coefficients of an EDL subsystem as well as the uncertainty in the estimated states.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-06)
Wells, Grant; Dutta, Soumyo; Mattson, Sarah; Lisano, Michael
This investigation looked into determining Phoenix’s
position using an image taken by the University of
Arizona’s High Resolution Imaging Science
Experiment camera. The objective was to test how
accurately a position for the lander could be
determined during entry, descent, and landing to
provide an alternate means of position determination
independent of Phoenix navigation data or Phoenix
telemetry in the event of the spacecraft’s on-board
inertial measurement unit failing or a communications
breakdown that prevented the return of the data.