Mars Free Return Trajectories

Sims, Jon A.; Longuski, James M.

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NASA NTRS · 20210003510

Mars Free Return Trajectories

Sims, Jon A.·Longuski, James M.

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Abstract

For human missions to Mars, the top priority is a safe return of the crew to Earth. In the case of an emergency, trajectories that naturally return to the Earth with no intervention are preferred. In this paper we use automated design software to compute all possible Mars Free Return trajectories form 1995 to 2020, given constraints on the total time of flight and on the launch energy. The resulting data file contains all of the previouslknown types of returns.

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Sims, Jon A., Longuski, James M.. 1997-09-01. Mars Free Return Trajectories. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20210003510

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