Mars Molniya Orbit Atmospheric Resource Mining

This NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I study examined the revolutionary concept of performing resource collection and utilization during Mars orbital operations in order to enable the landing of large payloads. An exploration architecture was developed, out of which several mission alternatives were developed. Concepts of operations were then developed for each mission alternative, followed by concepts for spacecraft systems, which were traded to assess their feasibility. A novel architecture using Mars Molniya Orbit Atmospheric Resource Mining is feasible to enable an Earth-independent and pioneering, permanent human presence on Mars by providing a reusable, single-stage-to-orbit transportation system. This will allow cargo and crew to be routinely delivered to and from Mars without transporting propellants from Earth. In Phase I, our study explored how electrical energy could be harnessed from the kinetic energy of the incoming spacecraft and then be used to produce the oxygen necessary for landing. This concept of operations is revolutionary in that its focus is on using in situ resources in complementary and varied forms: the upper atmosphere of Mars is used for aerocapture, which is followed by aerobraking, the kinetic energy of the spacecraft is transformed into usable electrical energy during aerobraking, and the atmospheric composition is the source of oxidizer for a landing under supersonic retropropulsion. This NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I study explores a novel mission architecture to establish routine, Earth-independent transfer of large mass payloads between Earth and the Mars surface and back to Mars orbit. The first stage of routine mission operations involves an atmospheric resource mining aerobraking campaign following aerocapture into a highly elliptical Mars orbit. During each pass through the atmosphere, the vehicle ingests the atmosphere and stores it onboard, and then uses solid oxide electrolysis to convert the primarily CO2 atmosphere into usable O2 for propellant. Power is made available through the use of magnetohydrodynamic energy generation, which converts the motion of the plasma in the shock layer into usable electrical energy. Upon termination of the aerobraking sequence, the descent vehicle detaches from the orbit stack, deorbits, and executes the entry, descent, and landing sequence. Hypersonic deceleration is achieved via a deployable heat shield to lower the vehicle ballistic coefficient, and supersonic and subsonic deceleration are achieved via retropropulsion. Mars surface operations involve resource mining of the Martian regolith to produce CH4 and O2 propellant to be used for the subsequent ascent of the Mars Descent Ascent Vehicle (MDAV) back to high Mars orbit (HMO) providing an apoapsis raise maneuver to initialize the aerobraking sequence, in addition to providing fuel from the Mars surface for the next Entry, Descent & Landing (EDL) propulsive descent, thus making the MDAV a reusable vehicle at Mars. The Resource Collector Vehicle (RCV), which is used for the orbital mining operations, is raised back to HMO via onboard deployable augmented solar electric propulsion. Concepts of operations were developed for each mission alternative, to evaluate between them and assess feasibility. In Phase I, we showed that for a human-class mission, with 81 orbital scooping passes at 79 km altitude, with each atmospheric scoop varying in duration from 5.3 minutes to 7.1 minutes, at speeds ranging from 3.57 km/s to 4.5 km/s, approximately 431 kg of CO2 can be ingested per scooping pass at periapsis and compressed by a RCV with a hypersonic ram-compression system. The total amount of CO2 captured and stored is approximately 34,939 kg. Because of the SOE chemical conversion process and other efficiency losses, this O2 product amounts to an estimated 20% of the captured CO2 mass - resulting in 6,986 kg of O2 for EDL propulsion to provide thrust for deorbit, reorientation for entry, supersonic retro-propulsion (SRP), and propulsive precision landing. A concept was developed, and the scooping analysis indicates that it would be feasible, but more detailed analysis is required in Phase II to optimize this concept and work out details of the aerodynamics and compression thermodynamics This NASA Swamp Works/Georgia Tech team has established a first-order feasibility confirmation of the revolutionary concept of performing resource collection and utilization during orbital operations and enabling the landing of large payloads.