The Incredible Challenge of Landing Heavy Payloads On Mars
It’s too bad Mars is such an interesting place, because it’s actually one of the most difficult places to visit in the Solar System, especially if you want to bring along a lot of luggage. That planet is a graveyard of missions that didn’t quite make it.
As our ambitions grow, and we think about exploring Mars with humans - maybe even future colonists - we’re going to need to solve one of the biggest problems in space exploration.
Successfully landing heavy payloads on the surface of Mars is really really hard to do.
This video was inspired by the incredible writing from Nancy Atkinson on Universe Today:
https://www.universetoday.com/7024/the-mars-landing-approach-getting-large-payloads-to-the-surface-of-the-red-planet/
Read:
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Engineering-Curiosity-Performs-Springer/dp/3319681443
Audio Podcast version:
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RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audio
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Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected]
Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw
Chad Weber - [email protected]
References:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/spacecraft_edl_aeroshell.html
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/06221711-how-curiosity-land-part-1.html
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7269
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=37000+kilograms+in+newtons
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/news.html
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-ldsd-project-completes-second-experimental-test-flight/
https://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/mission/timeline/mtaerobraking/
https://aerospace.illinois.edu/news/developing-flight-strategy-land-heavier-vehicles-mars
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/1.A34262?journalCode=jsr