Flight Path Control Strategies and Preliminary ΔV Requirements for the 2007 Mars Phoenix (PHX) Mission

摘要

In August 2007, the Mars Phoenix (PHX) Project will launch a spacecraft to Mars whose objective is to deliver a stationary lander to a landing site in the latitude band from 65° N to 72° N. Instruments on the lander will perform in-situ and remote-sensing investigations to characterize the chemistry of materials at the local surface, subsurface, and atmosphere. Lander instruments will also identify the potential provenance of key indicator elements of significance to the biological potential of Mars, including potential organics within any accessible water ice. This paper describes the methods used to estimate the statistical ΔV requirements for the propulsive maneuvers that will deliver the spacecraft to its target landing site while satisfying planetary protection requirements. The paper presents flight path control analysis results for three different trajectories, Open, Middle, and Close of launch period for the mission. The results for a representative landing site (70° N, 230° E) indicate that the open case involves the most demanding ΔV requirement (52.4 m/s) and that the inertial atmospheric entry flight path angle delivery requirement of-12.5 ± 0.27 (3σ) degrees is achievable.