Mars Science Laboratory's unprecedented “sky-crane” landing utilized a new “Terminal Descent Sensor” (TDS), a Ka-band pencil beam radar for high accuracy measurements of line-of-sight range and velocity. While Mars 2020 will utilize the same design from remaining parts and new builds, the availability of the TDS for future missions is unclear due to problems of obsolescence and reproducibility; in addition, the TDS is quite large, prohibitively so for smaller missions. Remote Sensing Solutions is currently funded under a NASA Small Business Innovative Research program to revisit the TDS design, and, notably, reduce the size, weight, and power; improve the manufacturability; and maintain or improve the performance. In this paper we discuss the results from RSS's design efforts. The RSS Terminal Descent Radar (TDR), is a modular design, allowing customization of the center frequency for different applications, from a small, reproducible package. The design utilizes the same “memoryless” measurement approach as the MSL TDS, but also includes additional capability to detect and potentially correct for contaminating targets such as airborne debris. In addition to the design activities, we discuss progress of our ongoing program to build and field a Ka-band version of the TDR based on RSS's ARENA software-defined digital transceiver and miniature Ka-band up/downconversion modules, both of which have clear paths to space qualification. The resultant sensor promises to provide similar if not improved performance as the TDS from a significantly smaller package.
A Terminal Descent Radar for Landing and Proximity Operations
2019-03-01
6368203 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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