The 2011 Mars Science Laboratory was the first successful Mars mission to perform a guided entry and it safely delivered the Curiosity rover to a final position approximately 2 km from its target within a touchdown ellipse of . The entry terminal point controller guidance algorithm modulates the bank angle to control the range flown based on deviations in range, altitude rate, and drag from a reference trajectory. It is critical to balance the lift of the vehicle to minimize the range error while still ensuring a safe parachute deploy altitude. Key dispersions driving parachute deploy ellipse and altitude performance are identified. Performance sensitivities including attitude initialization error and the velocity of transition from range control to heading alignment are presented. The guided entry performed as designed without any significant exceptions. The miss distance was attributed to little time to correct the downrange drift from the final bank reversal and a suspected tailwind during heading alignment.
Entry Guidance Design and Postflight Performance for 2011 Mars Science Laboratory Mission
Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets ; 51 , 4 ; 1094-1105
2014-06-20
12 pages
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Entry Guidance Design and Postflight Performance for 2011 Mars Science Laboratory Mission
Online Contents | 2014
|Entry Guidance for the 2011 Mars Science Laboratory Mission
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2011
|Entry Guidance for the 2011 Mars Science Laboratory Mission
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2011
|