ORBIT DEORBIT ANALYSIS FOR A MARS ROVER AND SAMPLE RETURN MISSION

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA Johnson Space Center recently engaged in the study of a combined Mars rover and surface sample return robotic mission with a projected start in the early 1990s. During the time of this effort, several possible scenarios were considered, the most ambitious being the delivery of a very capable rover to the Mars surface to analyze and collect samples, perhaps beyond 100 km from its landing site. The samples, about 5 kg worth, would be transported into orbit via an independent ascent vehicle, which would then rendezvous with and transfer the sample to an orbiting Earth return vehicle. At Earth, the samples could reach the surface with a direct atmospheric entry or be placed in orbit to be recovered by the Shuttle or a space station- based vehicle. This mission provides many interesting and challenging astrodynamic problems. Four of these problems have been investigated here. Two of them relate to satisfying specific mission requirements at Mars with a highly eccentric orbit having a very low periapsis altitude. One of them concerns the placing of an areosynchronous (similar to geosynchronous) communications satellite in orbit about Mars. The last investigates the problem of deorbiting to a specified landing site from a highly eccentric orbit. © 1988 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.