Design optimisation and analysis of very high power transportation system to Mars

Maddock, Christie and Parsonage, Ben and Ricciardi, Lorenzo Angelo and Vasile, Massimiliano and Cohen, Orr (2021) Design optimisation and analysis of very high power transportation system to Mars. In: 72nd International Astronautical Congress, 2021-10-25 - 2021-10-29, Dubai World Trade Centre.

[thumbnail of Maddock-etal-IAC-2021-Design-optimisation-and-analysis-of-very-high-power]
Preview
 Text. Filename: Maddock_etal_IAC_2021_Design_optimisation_and_analysis_of_very_high_power.pdf
Accepted Author Manuscript
Download (943kB)| Preview

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary design for a crewed transportation system to Mars, looking at both the vehicle and mission design trade-offs. The mission requirements are for a return mission to Mars, with a variable stay time on/around the planet. The vehicle is designed for a minimum crew of 3 plus 50 t cargo, and assumes in-orbit assembly and re-fueling options. A nominal vehicle design was developed using a bimodal nuclear propulsion system. A multi-objective optimisation was run examining the trade-offs between flight times, and total duration, for different Mars stay times, planetary conjunction angles, dry masses and engine sizing, and the mission trajectories.

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)