NASA’s current baseline plan for a crewed Mars mission anticipates a transit time of up to three hundred days in microgravity and 3-14 days on the Martian surface for gravity acclimation before the crew can safely perform their first Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA). While there are multiple options for how initial surface operations will be performed, all current designs involve acclimation on the surface, and the impacts on the mission schedule, required supplies, and crew lander systems are significant. This paper proposes an alternative option utilizing artificial gravity, which offers benefits in terms of mission scope, mass savings, crew health, and long-term strategic vision. By moving the acclimation requirement to the orbiting habitat’s existing systems, rather than adding redundant systems to the lander, the Mars Descent Vehicle (MDV) can be a much smaller, simpler, and lighter design. Rather than the lander being designed to support crew for days, it would be mere hours. While ambitious, the concept of pre-acclimation in orbit can be not only safe and feasible, but done with fairly minimal changes to the planned architecture and overall mass requirements. The data used draws on decades of established research and demonstrates how this capability can be not only used for pre-acclimation, but also to support crew during early orbital-only missions, surface abort contingency scenarios, return-to-orbit abort scenarios, and as an early proof of capability into larger and more ambitious artificial gravity designs needed for extended exploration missions in the future.


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    Title :

    Artificial Gravity in Mars Orbit for Crew Acclimation


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    IEEE Aerospace Conference ; 2020 ; Big Sky, MT, United States


    Publication date :

    2020-03-07


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English


    Keywords :


    Artificial gravity Mars spaceship

    Clark, Benton C. | NTRS | 1989


    Manned Mars mission crew factors

    Santy, Patricia A. | NTRS | 1986



    CONCEPTUAL SPACE VEHICLE ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMAN EXPLORATION OF MARS, WITH ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY AND MINI-MAGNETOSPHERE CREW RADIATION SHIELD

    Benton, M.G. / Kutter, B. / Bamford, R.A. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2012


    Manned MARS Mission Crew Factors

    P. A. Santy | NTIS | 1986