Assessment of aerocapture-entry trajectories for human Mars exploration

Using aerocapture to insert into an elliptic parking orbit prior to entry, descent, and landing is being explored for human Mars missions. These aerocapture-entry trajectories have advantages over a direct entry, but the advantages come at the cost of additional entry system mass. The goal of this research is to identify the parking orbit which minimizes entry system mass and to compare that to the entry system mass for a direct entry. The impact of a higher efficiency propulsion system, a higher entry velocity, and a reusable thermal protection system on aerocapture-entry system mass requirements is explored. Results indicate that the thermal protection system thickness does not vary significantly with parking orbit selection while shorter period orbits require more propellant for maneuvers. This result is not sensitive to changes in propulsion system efficiency, entry velocity, or heat shield material. Additionally, results show that aerocapture-entry architectures incur a TPS mass penalty up to 27% relative to direct entry, depending on vehicle. In addition, direct entry avoids needing propellant for in-space maneuvers between aerocapture and entry which ranges from 1.5% to 4.5% depending on orbit.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Aerospace Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Zinner, Evan J.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Putnam, Zachary R.

• Mars Entry Descent Landing Human Exploration Aerocapture Aerocapture-entry TPS Thermal Protection System Parking Orbit

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2019 Evan Zinner

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/104938

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/104938