Design of spacecraft for exploration of the Moon and Mars

In this thesis, I develop the conceptual design of the spacecraft required for human-Lunar and human-Mars exploration. The requirements for these vehicles are derived in the context of the NASA Concept Exploration & Refinement project. Similarly, the concepts generated are intended to operate within the transportation architecture developed during this project. Therefore, this thesis serves as a vehicle-level design exercise. Four vehicle architecture options are synthesized by combining system concepts in a logical fashion. These four options are evaluated on several performance criteria, and one vehicle design concept is selected for detailed modeling. In addition, I investigate the conceptual design of the airlock system, as a system-level design exercise. This research project culminated in a set of vehicle concept designs and design recommendations for NASA.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Epps, Brenden P

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Edward F. Crawley.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35674

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35674