Mars Molniya Orbit Atmospheric Resource Mining
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Author(s)
Mueller, Robert P.
Braun, Robert D.
Sforzo, Brandon
Sibille, Laurent
Gonyea, Keir C.
Ali, Hisham
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Abstract
Landing on Mars is extremely difficult [1] and is considered one of NASA’s biggest technical challenges on the journey to Mars. Science magazine [2] reported the following about the NASA Mars Science Lab (MSL) Mission:
“Not only will NASA have to slow the most massive load ever delivered to another planet's surface from hypervelocity bullet speeds to a dead stop, all in the usual "7 minutes of terror." But NASA is also attempting to deliver Curiosity to the surface of Mars more precisely than any mission before, within a 20-kilometer-long ellipse some 240 million kilometers from Earth. Both feats are essential to NASA's long-term goals at Mars: returning samples of Martian rock and sending humans to the Red Planet.”
As a result of the thin Mars atmosphere, this challenge is exacerbated as the payload mass is increased. This NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) project has studied one of the top challenges for landing large payloads and humans on Mars by using advanced atmospheric In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) methods that have never been tried or studied before. The proposed Mars Molniya Orbit Atmospheric Resource Mining concept mission architecture changes the paradigm of Mars landings for a wide range of vehicle classes to make the Earth-Mars round-trip travel robust, affordable, and ultimately routine for cargo and crew, therefore enabling the expansion of human civilization to Mars.
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2017-09
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