FREQUENT, FAST TRIPS TO AND FROM MARS VIA ASTRO TELS

摘要

Global Aerospace Corporation is developing a revolutionary concept for an overall interplanetary rapid transit system architecture for human transportation between Earth and Mars which supports a sustained Mars base of 20 people circa 2035. Funding from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) supports this effort. This innovative design architecture relies upon the use of small, highly autonomous, solar-electric-propelled space ships, we dub Astrotels for astronaut hotels and hyperbolic rendezvous between them and the planetary transport hubs using even smaller, fast-transfer, aeroassist vehicles we call Taxis. Astrotels operating in cyclic orbits between Earth, Mars and the Moon and Taxis operating on rendezvous trajectories between Astrotels and transport hubs or Spaceports will enable low-cost, low-energy, frequent and short duration trips between these bodies. This paper provides a vision of a far off future that establishes a context for near-term technology advance, systems studies, robotic Mars missions and human spaceflight. We will discuss the progress made during the Phase I NIAC study including the transportation architecture support assumptions and requirements, interplanetary orbit characteristics, low thrust propulsion requirements, aero-assist technologies, planetary resource utilization systems, conceptual systems designs, integrated architecture model development and initial architecture operations cost estimates.