IAC 2008, GlasgowDevelopSpace Minimalist Human Mars Mission IAC-08-A5.1 OPEN INNOVATION FOR SPACE SYSTEMS – USING THE DEVELOPSPACE PLATFORM FOR DESIGNING

IAC 2008, Glasgow DevelopSpace Minimalist Human Mars Mission

IAC-08-A5.1

OPEN INNOVATION FOR SPACE SYSTEMS – USING THE DEVELOPSPACE PLATFORM FOR DESIGNING A NEAR-TERM HUMAN MARS MISSION

Presentation at the International Astronautical Congress 2008

Glasgow, September 29, 2008

Alar KolkWilfried Hofstetter

Arthur Guest (speaker)Ryan McLinkoPaul Wooster


Why Humans to Mars?

• Mars is widely regarded as the ultimate destination for human space flight in the foreseeable future– Offers science opportunities related to planetology

– Potential for finding and studying extraterrestrial life

– Most importantly: Mars provides all the resources required for a long-term, mostly self-sufficient human presence away from Earth

• Rich history of feasibility studies for human Mars missions– E.g. von Braun 1953, Zubrin’s Mars Direct, NASA Mars DRM 1.0 / 3.0

– Tend to be focused on round-trip exploration missions (science focus)

• Major difference of work presented in this paper:– One-way missions: humans stay on Mars, are re-supplied

– Minimalist approach with near-term feasibility: focus on survival

– Open source engineering approach to architecture development

• Project goal: establish the feasibility of a human Mars “toehold” and identify areas where open-source engineering can make a difference


Why Open Innovation?

• Space industry today is still largely based on major technical capabilities developed in 1950s and 1960s– E.g. propulsion systems

• Humans to Mars may require aggressive new capabilities in design, development and operations

• Open innovation: emerging development concept based on a collaborative knowledge management approach– Utilizes knowledge internal and external to dev. organization

– May enable significant reduction of development cost and risk

– May improve quality of design solution (review effect)

• The DevelopSpace Initiative, Inc., is one possible implementation of the open innovation concept as an open-engineering platform– Idea: foundations for human expansion into space built-up open-source

– Tools (wiki, SVN, mailing lists) and libraries of publicly available reference literature and models for space-related open engineering projects


Overview of the DevelopSpaceMinimalist Human Mars Mission Project

• Goal: establish the feasibility of a human Mars “toehold” and identify areas where open-source engineering can make a difference– Toehold initially would support 4 people indefinitely (with re-supply)

– Could serve as the nucleus for a future mostly-self-sustained colony

• Project specifics: – Start in March 2008, aiming for a comprehensive review in October ‘08

• http://wiki.developspace.net/Minimalist_Human_Mars_Mission

– 9 team members, distributed geographically in the US and Europe

– Interaction via mailing list and approximately bi-weekly telecons

– Bi-lateral interactions as necessary for individual analyses

– Models and results available on the MinMars SVN repository

• http://svn.developspace.net/svn/minmars/

– Made use of information and models available in DevelopSpace mission architecture and subsystem technology library


Technical Architecture: Transportation

• Earth departure:– Chemical Earth departure– 2 stages per 25 mt payload

• At present LOX/LH2 prop.• Investigating LOX/RP-1

– Mass per stage: ~25 mt– Payload launched first, then propulsion

stages docked– 1st propulsion stage burned as soon as

docked; 2nd stage and payload loiter in elliptic orbit

• Mars aerocapture and EDL:– Blunt-body aeroshell for aerocapture

and EDL– LOX/LCH4 propellants for final descent

and landing– Higher ballistic coefficient than Mars

Science Laboratory– All-propulsive final landing (no main

parachute)– But lower landing altitude (-2 km MOLA

or less), higher atmospheric density

Earthdeparturestage 1

Earthdeparturestage 2

25 mtpayload

Entry body comparison to Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)

Vehicle MinMars MSL

Ballistic coefficient [kg/m2] 433 115

Aeroshell diameter [m] 7 4.6

Entry velocity [km/s] 4.5 (orbit) 6 (direct)

Landing altitude <-2 km < 2 km

Active entry guidance Yes Yes

Note: Mars aerocapture and EDL of payloads of 25 mt or more is an enabling capabilityfor any kind of human Mars mission; should be a research and development focus


Technical Architecture: Surface Infrastructure

• Aeroshell top part serves as part of structure for habitat pressure vessel

– Habitat has 2 levels: lower level for living, upper for sleeping

– 2 crew per habitat

• Unpressurized surface mobility for transit between infrastructure elements

• Surface power generation and energy storage:

– Thin-film roll-out arrays with either Li-Ion batteries or regenerative fuel cells

– Solar power performance similar to nuclear fission in equal energy case

Aeroshell top

Aeroshell bottom

Surface habitat


Technical Architecture: Re-supply and Logistics

• Generally high-closure system– Water recycling, washing machine– Regenerative CO2 & humidity removal

• In-Situ Consumables Production (ISCP) provides O2 and water

• Initially no in-situ food production, de-hydrated food imported from Earth

• Re-supply need per person per opportunity: < 2000 kg (incl. tare)

• Potential for polyethylene production

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Life Support System Architecture

ISRU Architecture

Breakdown of re-supplyper person per opportunity(including tare mass)


Technical Architecture: Notional Flight Manifest

• Opportunity 1 (no crew):– Flight 1: surface power,

inflatable habitat, pressurized supplies, communications tower, ISRU systems

– Flight 2: surface power, inflatable habitat, pressurized supplies, communications tower, ISRU systems

• Opportunity 2 (no crew):– Flight 1: pressurized supplies

– Flight 2: pressurized supplies

• Opportunity 3 (1st crew of 4):– Flight 1: habitat with 2 crew

members, supplies, unpressurized rover

– Flight 2: habitat with 2 crew members, supplies, unpressurized rover

• Opportunity 4 (no crew):– Flight 1: pressurized supplies

– Flight 2: workshop module with spare parts and supplies

Note: starting in opportunity 4, Flight 2 can be used to bring additionalsurface infrastructure which enables reduction of re-supply from Earth


Summary and Conclusions

• Technical feasibility of a one-way human Mars mission investigated and major technical challenges identified– Open engineering approach based on the DevelopSpace

platform with a geographically distributed project team– DevelopSpace provides project wiki, SVN repository, mailing list

• Establishment of a human Mars “toehold” with 4 crew appears to be feasible in the near future using:– Two 25 mt payloads, 4 Earth departure stages, 6 EELV-class

launch vehicles per opportunity; crew goes on 3rd opportunity – Solar surface power with batteries / regenerative fuel cells

– In-situ oxygen and water production from atmospheric CO2 and water contained in the Martian soil

– Over time, excess logistics capability can be used to bring additional infrastructure to further close loops / reduce re-supply


Future Work and Follow-on Projects

• No specific design solution has been created, but major remaining technical challenges have been identified– Full list: http://wiki.developspace.net/Mars_Wish_List

• We are planning to address the following 3 challenges with open-engineering projects on DevelopSpace – 1. Mars surface solar power generation: further parametric

design analysis, design build and test of deployment prototype– 2. Mars toehold re-supply and logistics: further parametric

design analysis, including in-situ food and ethylene production and more detailed assessment of spare parts (water regeneration, EVA)

– 3. Mars aerocapture and EDL for 25 mt payloads: numerical analysis of trajectory and entry body dynamics, and achievable landing accuracy with pre-deployed ground assets

• We welcome participation in these projects!– For further information: http://wiki.developspace.net/Projects


Thank you for your attention

Questions?

Note: an updated version of thepaper is available on the IAC server

Documents

IAC 2008, GlasgowDevelopSpace Minimalist Human Mars Mission IAC-08-A5.1 OPEN INNOVATION FOR SPACE SYSTEMS – USING THE DEVELOPSPACE PLATFORM FOR DESIGNING