1. Georgia Institute of Technology - Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory
24th Annual External Advisory Board Review, May 3 and 4, 2016
Establish a reusable end-to-end transportation architecture to deliver crew and cargo to Mars,
including all in-space phases from departure through return to Earth, within 20 years
• Evolve from today’s capabilities to a manned Mars mission architecture
• Vehicles can operate for 20+ years with reusability
Scope of the Trade Space
Planning Reusable Campaigns
Viability AssessmentOur Grand Challenge
Project Manager: Kaitlyn Fields | Chief Engineer: Nicole Davis
Team Members: Stephanie Zhu | Anh-Thu Nguyen
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Dimitri Mavris
Technical Advisor: Stephen Edwards
Student Advisor: Manuel Diaz
External Advisors:
Sharon Jefferies and Gabe Merrill
Space Mission Analysis Branch at NASA LaRC
Tom Percy
Advanced Concepts Office at NASA MSFCMotivation
Our efforts were focused on demonstrating a new methodology for viability assessment
of 20 year campaigns in determining a roadmap for capability development
A 20 year campaign with a series of precursor
missions has to be developed to allow for
evolution from today’s capabilities and
technologies to validated capabilities required
to facilitate a reusable transportation system
for delivering humans to Mars.
Development Program Budget Allocation Sandchart
Science
• Scientific discovery
• Real time adaptability
• Higher science return
• Innovations in technology
• Speed and efficiency
Exploration
• Expand presence and
mastery beyond Earth
• Search for life
• Improved exploration
mobility over robotics
Benefits to Humanity
• R&D spinoffs
• Economic benefits
• Advance human health
• Education
• Enhance Earth safety
• Limitations to autonomous and robotic
exploration systems can be overcome by humans
• Scientific discovery gained from expanding
human presence to Mars will yield innovations in
technology and research
Vehicle Mission
Architecture Campaign
A vehicle sized to a mission represents
an architecture.
• Viable architectures require all necessary development programs to be
completed within the 20 year goal and under the budget constraint
• Realized capabilities must be validated during precursor missions
Define 20
Year Concept
Build
Development
Program
Assess
Viability
Plan
Campaign
Iterate for Different Concepts
• Trade space defined by matrices of alternatives for vehicle and mission profile to capture a 20 year concept
• Selections in the matrices of alternatives map to required development programs
• A discrete event simulation (DES) stacks programs under the available budget and determines a start and
completion date for each program while our optimizer orders programs to minimize the development time
• This methodology is integrated into our interactive tradeoff environment that allows decision makers to
visualize and evaluate the viability of a user-defined architecture
• Our tool allows the user to
build multiple vehicles and
missions required for a 20-year
concept
• Reusable concepts (left) were
run through the tool to
demonstrate the viability of
developing reusable manned
Mars transportation systems
• Reusable vehicles incorporate
considerations for payload
change and refueling
Roadmap to Mars
Methodology
Multiple architectures are combined
to create a campaign.
NTP capability realized after 2024
2017
2018
2019 2021 …
2020
Capability realization dates
Chemical
NTP SEP
NEP
Vehicle Mission Profile
Viability Assessment Tool
Mission Matrices
Vehicle Matrices
User Input Output
Development Program List
DES for Development
Programs and Cost &
Schedule Estimation Conclusion
• We have worked on developing a new capability to close the gap between
design for feasibility and viability of reusable architectures
• Project will continue through September, remaining time will focus on
running reusable concepts while expanding the tool’s capabilities with a
new optimizer and surrogate models for porkchop plots