A methodology for innovative technologies roadmaps assessment to support strategic decisions for future space exploration

Traveling beyond LEO is the next step in the conquest of the solar system and so far, a human expedition to Mars is considered the most interesting goal of the future Human Space Exploration (HSE). Due to the technological and operational challenges associated to a human mission to the Red Planet, it is necessary to define an opportune path of exploration, relying on many missions to intermediate and "easier" destinations, which would allow a gradual achievement of the capabilities required for the human Mars mission. According to the actual interest in this topic, a study was carried out with the aim of defining a HSE reference scenario and analyze the relative technological issues. The reference scenario was built considering as final target the human mission to Mars as defined by NASA DRA 5.0. The intermediate destinations were selected so that they will guarantee the implementation and achievement, through a step-by-step approach, of all the capabilities required to accomplish the human mission to Mars. All the scenario destinations' missions were analyzed and characterized in terms of strategies, architectures and needed building blocks. Then specific analyses concerning the key technologies to accomplish those missions were performed, starting from the definition of a large database collecting the most innovative and not yet space qualified technologies up to the analysis of how the most important ones are implementable through the various destinations and missions elements. The obtained results are represented by a versatile tool, useful to support strategic decisions, allowing understanding and visualizing where, when and in which elements each technology can potentially be applied and tested (maybe at limited extent), before being implemented in a specific mission where it is absolutely required. This could be very helpful to well place investments in the development of specific systems to allow future space exploration missions. The paper, after an overview of the HSE reference scenario and of the process followed to build it focuses on the description of the methodology defined to build a tool for technologies roadmaps assessment Specific examples are provided to better explain how the tool can be exploited. (C) 2013 IAA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.