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TPS and Entry Systems Technologies for Future Mars and Titan Exploration During the past twenty years, NASA effectively erased earlier Mars mishaps with six successful missions to the Red Planet. These missions delivered one orbiter and five payloads to the surface. Those payloads included three rovers, Spirit (2004) which roamed 11 years, Opportunity (2004) which roamed nearly 15 years, and Curiosity (2012) which is in its ninth year, along with two landers, Phoenix (2008) and InSIGHT (2018). In July, the Mars 2020 mission will send another large rover, Perseverance, which will land in 2021. The InSIGHT mission even demonstrated the capability to send CubeSats along to help with communication back to the surface. NASA has demonstrated the capability to land a metric ton of vehicles plus science instruments on Mars and expects that the same technologies will be equally successful landing Dragonfly on Titan in the 2030’s. The thermal protection systems (TPS) used on the Mars missions are sufficiently developed and matured to continue furthering science on both Mars and Titan, assuming that the TPS materials are sustained by industry. The purpose of this white paper is to encourage further exploration and science on both Mars and Titan because we have the technologies to support them. In addition, we will look forward to human exploration of Mars and identify the improvements in TPS materials required to facilitate
landing the larger payloads.
Document ID
20205000300
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Robin Beck
(Ames Research Center)
Milad Mahzari
(Ames Research Center Mountain View, California, United States)
Helen Hwang
(Ames Research Center Mountain View, California, United States)
Mairead Stackpoole
(Ames Research Center Mountain View, California, United States)
Ethiraj Venkatapathy
(Ames Research Center)
Alan Cassell
(Ames Research Center)
Cooper Snapp
(Johnson Space Center Houston, Texas, United States)
Date Acquired
March 31, 2020
Subject Category
Engineering (General)
Meeting Information
Meeting: MEPAG Meeting 38
Location: Virtual
Country: US
Start Date: April 15, 2020
End Date: April 17, 2020
Sponsors: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Jet Propulsion Lab
Funding Number(s)
WBS: 971200.02.01.02
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
Technical Review
NASA Peer Committee
Keywords
Thermal Protection Systems
Mars Exploration
Titan Exploration
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