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NASA NTRS2019

NASA’s Space Launch System: Enabling a New Generation of Lunar Exploration

Following two decades of operational experience in low-Earth orbit (LEO), NASA has turned its focus once again to deep space exploration. The Agency is building the Space Launch System (SLS) to take astronauts and cargo to the Moon and send robotic spacecraft deep into the solar system. Offering unmatched performance, departure energy and payload capacity, SLS is designed to evolve into progressively more powerful configurations, enabling a new generation of human exploration of the Moon in preparation for future missions to Mars. The first build of the Block 1 vehicle is nearly complete for Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), the first integrated flight of SLS and the Orion crew vehicle. EM-1 will send an uncrewed Orion to a distant retrograde lunar orbit in order to test and verify new systems, and along the way will deploy 13 6U-class CubeSats in deep space along the upper stage disposal trajectory after separation from Orion. The Agency’s current plans call for the first three missions on the SLS manifest to utilize the Block 1 vehicle in crew and cargo configurations. A more powerful evolved vehicle, Block 1B, will provide additional mass and volume performance using a new Exploration Upper Stage (EUS). Block 1B will lift 34 to 40 metric tons (t) to trans-lunar injection (TLI), depending on crew or cargo configuration. The Block 1B crew configuration will offer as much payload volume as industry-standard 5 m-diameter fairings to co-manifested payloads in a Universal Stage Adapter (USA). The Block 1B cargo variant will accommodate 8.4 meter-diameter fairings in 62.7-foot (19.1 meter) or 90-foot (27.4 meter) lengths. Adding smallsat secondary payloads to ride along with primary and co-manifested payloads on future flights may be possible, depending on mass margins. Leveraging a flight-proven, well-understood propulsion system, SLS’s flexible architecture, unmatched performance and expansive payload accommodations will open exciting new mission possibilities in deep space. Launches of habitat modules for NASA’s new Gateway lunar outpost, the next generation of robotic spacecraft to the far reaches of the solar system, large-aperture deep space telescopes, probes to interstellar space and the return of astronauts to the Moon are all possible with SLS.

Creech, Stephen D.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Planetary Dust: Cross-Functional Considerations

Apollo astronauts learned first hand how problems with dust impact lunar surface missions. After three days, lunar dust contaminating on EVA suit bearings led to such great difficulty in movement that another EVA would not have been possible. Dust clinging to EVA suits was transported into the Lunar Module. During the return trip to Earth, when microgravity was reestablished, the dust became airborne and floated through the cabin. Crews inhaled the dust and it irritated their eyes. Some mechanical systems aboard the spacecraft were damaged due to dust contamination. Study results obtained by Robotic Martian missions indicate that Martian surface soil is oxidative and reactive. Exposures to the reactive Martian dust will pose an even greater concern to the crew health and the integrity of the mechanical systems. As NASA embarks on planetary surface missions to support its Exploration Vision, the effects of these extraterrestrial dusts must be well understood and systems must be designed to operate reliably and protect the crew in the dusty environments of the Moon and Mars. The AIM Dust Assessment Team was tasked to identify systems that will be affected by the respective dust, how they will be affected, associated risks of dust exposure, requirements that will need to be developed, identified knowledge gaps, and recommended scientific measurements to obtain information needed to develop requirements, and design and manufacture the surface systems that will support crew habitation in the lunar and Martian outposts.

Wagner, Sandra↗
NASA NTRS2004

An Assessment of Dust Effects on Planetary Surface Systems to Support Exploration Requirements

Apollo astronauts learned first hand how problems with dust impact lunar surface missions. After three days, lunar dust contamination on EVA suit bearings led to such great difficulty in movement that another EVA would not have been possible. Dust clinging to EVA suits was transported into the Lunar Module. During the return trip to Earth, when micro gravity was reestablished, the dust became airborne and floated through the cabin. Crews inhaled the dust and it irritated their eyes. Some mechanical systems aboard the spacecraft were damaged due to dust contamination. Study results obtained by Robotic Martian missions indicate that Martian surface soil is oxidative and reactive. Exposures to the reactive Martian dust will pose an even greater concern to the crew health and the integrity of the mechanical systems. As NASA embarks on planetary surface missions to support its Exploration Vision, the effects of these extraterrestrial dusts must be well understood and systems must be designed to operate reliably and protect the crew in the dusty environments of the Moon and Mars. The AIM Dust Assessment Team was tasked to identify systems that will be affected by the respective dust, how they will be affected, associated risks of dust exposure, requirements that will need to be developed, identified knowledge gaps, and recommended scientific measurements to obtain information needed to develop requirements, and design and manufacture the surface systems that will support crew habitation in the lunar and Martian outposts.

Wagner, Sandy↗
NASA NTRS1988

Exploration Studies Technical Report - Volume 2: Studies Approach and Results

The NASA Office of Exploration has been tasked with defining and recommending alternatives for an early 1990's national decision on a focused program of human exploration of the solar system. The Mission Analysis and System Engineering (MASE) group, which is managed by the Exploration Studies Office at the Johnson Space Center, is responsible for coordinating the technical studies necessary for accomplishing such a task. This technical report describes the process that has been developed in a case study approach. The four case studies that were developed in FY88 include: 1. Human expedition to Phobos 2. Human expeditions to Mars 3. Lunar observatory 4. Lunar outpost to early Mars evolution The final outcome of this effort is a set of programmatic and technical conclusions and recommendations for the following year's work. Volume 2 describes the case study process, the technical results of each of the case studies, and opportunities for additional study. Included in the discussion of each case study is a description of the mission key features and profile. Mission definition and manifesting are detailed, followed by a description of the mission architecture and infrastructure. Systems concepts for the required orbital nodes, transportation systems, and planetary surface systems are discussed. Prerequisite implementation plans resulting from the synthesized case studies are described and in-depth assessments are presented.

Interplanetary flight↗
NASA NTRS1992

Database of proposed payloads and instruments for SEI missions

A database of all payloads and instruments proposed for lunar and Mars missions was compiled by the author for the Exploration Programs Office at NASA's Johnson Sapce Center. The database is an outgrowth of the document produced by C. J. Budney et al. at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1991. The present database consists not only of payloads proposed for human exploratory missions of the Moon and Mars, but also experiments selected or proposed for robotic precursor missions such as Lunar Scout, Mars Observer, and MESUR. The database consists of two parts: a written payload description and a matrix that provides a breakdown of payload components. Each payload description consists of the following information: (1) the rationale for why the instrument or payload package is being proposed for operation on the Moon or Mars; (2) a description of how the instrument works; (3) a breakdown of the payload, providing detailed information about the mass, volume, power requirements, and data rates for the constituent pieces of the experiment; (4) estimates of the power consumption and data rate; (5) how the data will be returned to Earth and distributed to the scientific community; (6) any constraints on the location or conditions under which the instrument can or cannot operate; (7) what type of crew interaction (if any) is needed; (8) how the payload is to be delivered to the lunar or martian surface (along with alternative delivery options); (9) how long the instrument or payload package will take to set up; (10) what type of maintenance needs are anticipated for the experiment; (11) stage of development for the instrument and environmental conditions under which the instrument has been tested; (12) an interface required by the instrument with the lander, a rover, an outpost, etc.; (13) information about how often the experiment will need to be resupplied with parts or consumables, if it is to be resupplied; (14) the name and affiliation of a contact person for the experiment; and (15) references where further information about the experiment can be found.

Barlow, N. G.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Uncrewed Lunar Surface Operations and Support Activities

Sustained human presence on the surface of the Moon and future missions to Mars require increased independence from surface crews and Earth-based mission control to operate efficiently, safely, and reliably. The time for surface crews to perform tasks will be limited. Extravehicular activities by surface personnel are burdensome and time-consuming, even when a continuous human presence on the surface occurs. Identifying and balancing human/automation roles and tasks and infusing automation and autonomy practices early in a system’s lifecycle will be essential to achieve mission objectives. Among these objectives are attaining a sustained human presence, improving performance and mission effectiveness, reducing operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, and ensuring operations that are robust to communication delays. To achieve these objectives, an operational shift toward increased automation and autonomy with less reliance on humans is needed. Uncrewed lunar surface operations and support activities occur when surface crews are not present or are independent of surface crew timeline activities requiring no surface crew oversight or intervention. These uncrewed surface opportunities can also be planned to minimize crew workload that avoids routine maintenance and support tasks, thus maximizing crew exploration time. Uncrewed preparations such as staging and prepositioning equipment and materials before the crew arrives could improve crew task efficiency. Additional opportunities exist to conduct uncrewed science, exploration, and utilization. Uncrewed surface architecture functions can include science and exploration; habitation; launch and landing support; surface communication and navigation; surface power generation and distribution; human surface mobility; lifting, handling, manipulating; excavation, construction, and site preparation; logistics management; maintenance and repair; surface resource utilization; integrated site operations and shared support services (e.g., site scheduling/prioritization, dust mitigation/contamination control, and surface safety). Early robotic lunar surface campaigns will provide information on the availability of resources, such as oxygen and water, and demonstrate surface-based technologies. After the Artemis III human lunar return mission, a series of landers will deliver surface systems, cargo, supplies, science packages, spare parts, and commodities. A balance of crewed and uncrewed surface operations will enable a sustained lunar surface presence at the South Pole of the Moon at a site that will be known as the Artemis Base Camp (ABC). It is envisioned that base camp operations on and around the Moon will then help prepare for the mission durations and activities needed to support the first human mission to Mars. Before long-duration crew missions to the base camp can occur, the necessary surface infrastructure will be pre-deployed and verified operational. Surface assets will be teleoperated and remotely managed from Earth. Additionally, robotic and short-duration crewed missions to the ABC will ensure the site’s merit to achieve long-term science objectives, availability of usable resources, and that terrain, seasonal variations, and illumination conditions are acceptable. ABC will consist of different areas where specific functions and services are rendered, including: • Launch and Landing Area • Habitation Area • Power Production Area • Resource Areas Launch and Landing Area—The launch and landing area will support associated functions for the arrival and departure of vehicles, such as crewed landing and ascent and uncrewed cargo deliveries and offloading. It will evolve from an unimproved site at the beginning of the exploration campaign to a more sustainable landing and launch area that can support repeated arrivals and departures. Initial uncrewed Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) surface operations may include emplacement of navigation beacons and communication equipment, real-time video and photography of landing/liftoff events, and element repositioning, such as portable utility power (PUP) (applicable for other landed assets at other areas). Site preparations, such as surface leveling, soil compaction, and berm/path construction, may be needed for a more sustainable launch and landing area capable of accommodating vehicles that are increasingly more reusable and reduce the effects of plume surface interactions and ejecta impacts on nearby surface assets. During the ABC missions, cargo and logistics will be delivered to the lunar surface via robotic cargo landers before the crew arrives. These shipments, which can arrive in pressurized logistics carriers, will deliver the logistics necessary to support a crewed mission and include items such as food, water, equipment spares, etc. Providing the capability to retrieve, offload, and transport the logistics closer to the ABC site before the arrival of the crew will increase the overall efficiency of crew operations once they arrive. In the sustained phase of exploration, other supporting services may be needed, such as lander propellant servicing, surface power services, commodity refreshes, and additional inspection, maintenance, and repair capabilities, to sustain a cadence of extended personnel stays and cargo arrivals and departures. Habitation Area—Uncrewed support to surface habitation could involve supporting activation and pre-entry operations of the habitat while the crew is in orbit at the Gateway outpost preparing for a surface landing. Surface Habitat (SH) uncrewed operations may include bringing the cabin environment to a habitable temperature and air mix and activating other critical crew support systems. Potential crop production uncrewed tasks in the SH could also include autonomous watering and tending. Additionally, when the crew departs, the SH enters dormancy for the long period of uncrewed operation. A logistical staging area could also be collocated near the SH. If so, staging operations for crew supplies, waste re-location, and recycling operations may be opportunities for uncrewed operations. Power Production Area—The Fission Surface Power (FSP) element and its supporting distribution equipment provide power to surface elements as needed across the ABC to supplement day-to-day operations and survive lunar nights. Uncrewed support of this power system includes any initial LTV-assisted deployments of cables and other distributed equipment, associated electrical connections, and system testing and activation operations. Robotically performing some inspections, maintenance, or repair tasks on the power distribution equipment could reduce the surface crew workload. Resource Area— Uncrewed resource prospecting, mapping, and characterizing possible resource sites is likely to be time-consuming and represents an opportunity for uncrewed operations between crewed missions. Uncrewed mobile equipment operations will be needed in the extreme environments of permanently shadowed locations where resource extractions occur. As In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) pilot plant operations begin, uncrewed surface support activities with available mobile and portable assets (LTV, PUP, etc.) will better support these operations. Any produced commodities can be stored at a centralized storage location for future use. Also associated with these operations is the use of mobile robotic excavators for resource acquisition and robotic/autonomous regolith processing. The waste tailings generated during excavation and regolith processing would also need to be transported and deposited at a dedicated location. Surface assets will continue operating between crew visits to maintain surface capabilities, conduct lunar surface science, technology demonstrations, and public outreach opportunities. Additionally, certain sustaining tasks that would consume valuable crew time could be performed before crew arrival, or after their departure. This capability may offer more affordable options to construct, activate, test, and maintain a broad set of surface assets. Telerobotically operated human surface mobility systems, such as the LTV and Pressurized Rover (PR), can be utilized for various tasks. Surface environmental conditions pose a distinct challenge for all these activities. Surface illumination and localized shadows are one such factor. Night-survival operations could consist of thermal management, battery pre-charging, and load shedding. Some surface systems may hibernate through the night and then awake and continue nominal operations. Uncrewed mobile assets may use a more adaptive approach to optimize their power and operations; one method is to follow the sunlight. Night-survival operations may be initiated remotely by teleoperation, automated, or accomplished by supervised autonomous operation. The ability to pre-deploy and control remote assets in orbit or on Mars before the arrival of the mission crew is a key capability that can be simulated on the moon. The base camp provides a venue where these advanced operational concepts, technologies, and autonomous methods and techniques, including the incorporation of time delays to simulate Earth-Mars latency can be replicated to help buy down future Mars mission risks. This paper will examine the evolution of uncrewed lunar surface operations and support activities. It will also discuss the lunar surface environmental conditions (thermal, lighting, terrain, topography, communications) along with the challenges they pose on uncrewed surface operations, and the performance of these activities with limited to minimal human interaction and/or teleoperation. Since lunar missions include Mars mission analogs, such investigation provides the framework for future uncrewed Mars mission support.

Mark E Lewis↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Overview of the Lunar Transit Trajectory Performed by the Power and Propulsion Element of NASA’s Gateway

NASA has committed to returning to the moon, landing the first woman and the next man on its surface. To support a sustained lunar presence, NASA is designing an orbital platform to be assembled in an orbit near the moon called the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). This platform is known as the Gateway and its purpose it to support missions primarily to the lunar south pole. As NASA continues to study ways to reduce the cost of lunar exploration, a simplification implemented in 2020combinedthe first two elements of the Gateway, the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and NASA’s Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), onto a single commercial launch vehicle (CLV). When launched together, the PPE and HALO make up the first two elements of NASA’s Gateway and exceed the performance capacity of commercially available launch vehicles to deliver directly to the moon. The delivery of the Gateway is enabled by and takes advantage of the high efficiency of the PPEs high-power Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) system to transfer a significant starting mass from an initial Earth orbit to final insertion into the NRHO. The PPE is a 50-kW class high power solar electric propulsion stage comprised of two different types of electric thruster strings. The SEP system is operated in two different modes, a high thrust and high Isp (specific impulse), to both maximize the final delivered mass and attempt to minimize the time spent in the Van Allen Belts early in the transit trajectory. Additionally, this SEP system brings the capability to the assembled Gateway for transfer between orbits in cislunar space. This paper captures the preliminary low thrust lunar transfer reference trajectory to be flown by the PPE it delivers itself and HALO via a spiral trajectory from launch vehicle insertion to insertion into the NRHO as well as a preliminary reference round trip transfer of the Gateway from the NRHO to a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) using the PPE. Once in its final NRHO, the Gateway is being designed to enable long duration human and robotic exploration of the lunar south pole as a precursor to Mars. The Gateway’s low thrust lunar transit trajectory is envisioned to prove out the application of and flight of a high-power SEP system as a demonstration of technologies applicable to the enabling of future human space exploration.

human exploration↗
NASA NTRS2007

High-Performance, Radiation-Hardened Electronics for Space Environments

The Radiation Hardened Electronics for Space Environments (RHESE) project endeavors to advance the current state-of-the-art in high-performance, radiation-hardened electronics and processors, ensuring successful performance of space systems required to operate within extreme radiation and temperature environments. Because RHESE is a project within the Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP), RHESE's primary customers will be the human and robotic missions being developed by NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) in partial fulfillment of the Vision for Space Exploration. Benefits are also anticipated for NASA's science missions to planetary and deep-space destinations. As a technology development effort, RHESE provides a broad-scoped, full spectrum of approaches to environmentally harden space electronics, including new materials, advanced design processes, reconfigurable hardware techniques, and software modeling of the radiation environment. The RHESE sub-project tasks are: SelfReconfigurable Electronics for Extreme Environments, Radiation Effects Predictive Modeling, Radiation Hardened Memory, Single Event Effects (SEE) Immune Reconfigurable Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) (SIRF), Radiation Hardening by Software, Radiation Hardened High Performance Processors (HPP), Reconfigurable Computing, Low Temperature Tolerant MEMS by Design, and Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) Integrated Electronics for Extreme Environments. These nine sub-project tasks are managed by technical leads as located across five different NASA field centers, including Ames Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Langley Research Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center. The overall RHESE integrated project management responsibility resides with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Initial technology development emphasis within RHESE focuses on the hardening of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA)s and Field Programmable Analog Arrays (FPAA)s for use in reconfigurable architectures. As these component/chip level technologies mature, the RHESE project emphasis shifts to focus on efforts encompassing total processor hardening techniques and board-level electronic reconfiguration techniques featuring spare and interface modularity. This phased approach to distributing emphasis between technology developments provides hardened FPGA/FPAAs for early mission infusion, then migrates to hardened, board-level, high speed processors with associated memory elements and high density storage for the longer duration missions encountered for Lunar Outpost and Mars Exploration occurring later in the Constellation schedule.

Keys, Andrew S.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Sabatier Methanation Reactor for Space Exploration

The Sabatier Methanation Reactor technology is of vital importance to the success of the human and robotic exploration program. In order to achieve an affordable program, the logistics supply to support the mission must be minimized to the fullest extent possible. One area of potential reduction with high return on investment is the closure of life support loops, particularly oxygen and water. The Sabatier system accomplishes this by utilizing hydrogen and carbon dioxide, waste products from the life support system, to produce water and methane. The recovered water is then recycled back into the life support system to provide oxygen; while the methane can be used for propulsion, or can be broken down further to recover the hydrogen. This technology is applicable not only to transit phases of exploration, but surface habitats as well as in-situ propellant production. The Sabatier Reactor system has been developed for ground based demonstration experiments extensively over the past 30 years. Over the past three years, NASA has funded development of the Sabatier Carbon Dioxide Reduction Assembly (CRA) for use on the ISS. Currently this system is at TRL 5 and it is expected that the system will be flown on the ISS as a flight experiment, The purpose of the flight experiment is to integrate the Sabatier CRA into a synchronized system with the oxygen generation system and the carbon dioxide concentrator. The flight experiment will verify the integration of the different systems working together plus it will verify the capability of the system to operate, and effectively separate its products in a micro-gravity environment. Subsequent to design validation, the flight experiment can remain onboard the ISS providing valuable water to offset logistics re-supply requirements. Some of the challenges facing the development of the Sabatier system include handling vibration induced particulates, microgravity phase separation and containment of hazardous gases. Plans for adequately addressing these issues will be presented. The Sabatier carbon dioxide reduction process will greatly benefit any of the extended duration human exploration missions because of the tremendous savings of consumables realized. Any of these mission scenarios, be they transit or surface based, must consider closing the life support loops in order to make the mission achievable, let alone affordable. Carbon dioxide reduction technology will be necessary for future outpost habitats, and the technology needs to be proven viable in a space application. The Sabatier methanation reaction is also a desirable method for producing propellant from the Mars atmosphere. The common system could be designed to accept carbon dioxide from an indoor air revitalization loop concentrator, or from an outdoor atmosphere compressor. Carbon dioxide reduction validation is but one step in the spiral development of the in-situ propellant production system desired for future planetary exploration.

Murdoch, Karen↗