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Footnotes
1NASA (2000b) press release dated October 26, 2000
2Mars Program Synthesis Group (2003) Mars Exploration Strategy 2009-2020
3Manning and Simon (2014) Mars Rover Curiosity
4Caffrey et al (2004)
5Manning and Simon (2014)
6Rob Manning credits Dara Sabahi with that realization
7NASA (2000a) Mars Program Independent Assessment Team Summary Report
8NASA (2001) Mars Exploration Program Mars 2007 Smart Lander Mission Science Definition Team Report
9Malin and Edgett (2000)
10NASA (2001)
11A “sol” is a Martian day, about 3% longer than an Earth day
12Manning and Simon (2014)
13Boynton et al (2002)
14Manning and Simon (2014)
15Udomkesmalee and Hayati (2005)
16Cooper (2005)
17Cook (2011)
18Vasavada (2006)
19Golombek et al (2012)
20Wallace (2012)
21Golombek et al (2012)
22Rummel et al (2014)
23Rummel (2006)
24Golombek et al (2012)
25Rummel (2006)
26Golombek et al (2012)
27Benardini et al (2014)
28Manning and Simon (2014)
29Billing and Fleischner (2011)
30Novak et al (2008)
31Manning and Simon (2014)
32Billing and Fleischner (2011)
33JPL (2014a)
34Watkins and Steltzner (2007)
35Wiens (2013) Red Rover
36Slimko et al (2011)
37Michael Malin, personal communication, interview dated June 11, 2014
38Watkins (2007)
39The details of the impacts of the MARDI and Mastca
m descopes and subsequent redesign effort of fixed-focus Mastcams are based on an interview with Michael Malin dated June 11, 2014
40Lawler (2008)
41Manning and Simon (2014)
42Devereaux and Manning (2012)
43Cook (2011)
44Welch et al (2013)
45Devereaux (2013)
46Manning and Simon (2014)
47Cook R (2009)
48Green (2009)
49Woerner et al (2013)
50Manning and Simon (2014)
51Louise Jandura and Cambria Hanson, personal communication, interview dated June 3, 2016
52Manning (2014)
53Wiens et al (2012)
54Manning and Simon (2014)
55JPL (2010)
56NASA Office of Inspector General (2011)
57Manning and Simon (2014)
58NASA Office of Planetary Protection (2014)
59Stabekis (2012)
60United Nations COSPAR (2011) COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy
61Manning and Simon (2014)
© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Emily LakdawallaThe Design and Engineering of CuriositySpringer Praxis Bookshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68146-7_2
2. Getting to Mars
Emily Lakdawalla1
(1)The Planetary Society, Pasadena, CA, USA
2.1 LAUNCH
Mars launch opportunities happen about every 26 months, as Earth begins to approach Mars from behind on its faster inside track around the Sun. The earliest MSL could launch was November 25, 2011; any earlier, and it would arrive at Mars with too much speed for the entry, descent, and landing system to dissipate. The latest it could launch was December 18; any later, and the Atlas V 541 rocket wouldn’t have enough thrust to deliver the spacecraft to its rendezvous point with Mars.
Within that 24-day period, no matter the launch date, MSL would arrive at Mars within a 15-minute window on August 6, 2012. That choice of timing allowed both Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey to be in position to perform relay communications during MSL’s landing without any adjustment to their orbits. The orbiter relays were crucial, because only 5 minutes after atmospheric entry, Mars would block the visibility of MSL’s direct-to-Earth radio communications.
The first day of the launch period was also the day after the Thanksgiving holiday. MSL team members gathered with their families in Florida resorts and timeshares, feasting and awaiting the fireworks at Kennedy Space Center. On November 19, NASA announced a one-day delay to replace a flight termination system battery.
MSL launched at 15:02:00 UT (10:02 a.m., local Florida time) on Saturday, November 26, 2011 (Figure 2.1). The Atlas V Common Core Booster ignited first, combusting kerosene with liquid oxygen. The four solid rocket boosters lit up a split second later. The solids burned out after 90 seconds and were jettisoned 22 seconds after that. At launch plus 3 minutes 22 seconds, the clamshell of the payload fairing split open, exposing the spacecraft to space for the first time. Another minute later, the Atlas engine shut down and separated from the Centaur upper stage (Figure 2.2).1
Figure 2.1. MSL launched on an Atlas V 541 from the Eastern Test Range of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 15:02:00 UT (10:02 a.m., local Florida time) on Saturday, November 26, 2011. Scott Andrews/Canon.
Figure 2.2. Atlas V 541 launch vehicle facts and timeline. Modified from United Launch Alliance press kit.
Four minutes 37 seconds after launch, the Centaur ignited and burned liquid hydrogen in oxygen for 7 minutes, placing the spacecraft into a 165-by-265 kilometer parking orbit at an inclination of 28.9°. It coasted for 20 minutes. During the coast phase, MSL was active, reporting via the launch vehicle’s radio through the Tracking Data Relay System satellites to Earth that the solar cells on the cruise stage were generating power, charging the batteries.
Thirty-two minutes and 23 seconds after launch, the Centaur ignited again, burning for 8 minutes to inject MSL onto its transfer trajectory to Mars. This burn deliberately targeted the spacecraft slightly away from Mars, in order to prevent the non-sterilized Centaur upper stage from impacting the Martian surface and potentially contaminating it. With the trans-Mars injection achieved, the Centaur performed one last maneuver, spinning up the spacecraft to 2 rotations per minute. Finally, 44 minutes after launch, pyrotechnics cut the spacecraft’s connection to the Centaur, and push-off springs shoved it gently away at a relative velocity of 0.27 meters per second (Figure 2.3).
Figure 2.3. RocketCam views of the departing MSL spacecraft following separation from the Centaur upper stage. The six sets of cruise stage solar arrays are visible. Screen captures from NASA Television broadcast, November 26, 2011.
With spacecraft separation achieved, MSL was on its own. The spacecraft waited 1 minute in order to avoid interference with the Centaur’s continuing radio communications. Then it turned on its amplifier, powered up the transmitter, and contacted Earth directly for the first time. As MSL zoomed away from Earth, Australia’s deep-space communications dishes listened. Within 20 seconds, a ground station in Dongara, Western Australia, locked onto its carrier signal; two dishes (DSS-45 and DSS-34) in Canberra achieved carrier lock 2 seconds later. Within another 30 seconds, the stations achieved telemetry lock, successfully decoding the signal to receive MSL’s reports of spacecraft health. This initial telemetry confirmed that the spacecraft was thermally stable, generating power, and was commandable. That state of affairs meant that the launch phase was over; the cruise phase had begun. Later analysis of the trajectory would reveal that “the trans-Mars injection and spacecraft separation provided by the Centaur was outstanding and set a new standard on launch vehicle performance.”2
2.2 CRUISE
2.2.1 The cruise stage
The cruise stage made MSL an interplanetary spacecraft (Figure 2.4). It sensed the Sun, tracked the stars, generated power, kept the rover cool, and performed trajectory correction maneuvers to steer the spacecraft’s course to Mars. It did not have independent telecommunications capability. A cone-shaped medium gain antenna mounted to the cruise stage relied upon transmitting and receiving hardware buried in the descent stage. The cruise stage weighed 466.5 kilograms when dry, and carried 73.8 kilograms of propellant.3
Figure 2.4. Cruise stage parts as seen at JPL in late 2008. The thruster clusters are enclosed in protective cages (red) that were removed before launch. NASA/JPL-Caltech release PIA11440, annotated by Emily Lakdawalla.
To aid navigation, the cruise stage carried one star scanner and two sun-sensor assemblies, each of which had four sensors pointed in different directions. One sun-sensor assembly was connected to each of the rover’s two computers. The cruise stage had no independent brain, relying instead on the rover’s computers.
MSL’s power system was incredibly complex, due in part to its being controlled by the rover avionics. Although the cruise stage derived power from solar arrays, the power had to be passed through the descent stage to the rover avionics for maintenance of voltage stability and power levels. To generate power, the cruise stage had 6 arrays of solar cells (visible in Figure 2.3), capable of producing as many as 2500 watts of power at Earth’s distance from the Sun. As the spacecraft approached Mars, the power output would diminish to about 1000 watts, both because of the increasing distance and because the solar panels would no longer be pointed directly at the Sun.
Keeping the interior of the interplanetary spacecraft cool was a major challenge during cruise, just as it was during the final launch preparations. Encased within the aeroshell, the MMRTG sat in close proximity to pressurized fuel tanks for the descent stage whose temperature should not rise above 30°C. The 2000 watts of waste heat that the MMRTG generated needed to be radiated to space. Using fluid running inside metal tubing, the cruise stage gathered heat from within the aeroshell. The cruise stage had a redundant pair of pumps (only one in use at a time) that moved Freon through 70 meters of tubing in the Cruise Heat Rejection System (CHRS). T
he flowing Freon gathered heat from the cold plates of the rover’s heat exchanger and the roots of the MMRTG fins, then carried it behind the 10 cruise stage radiators (read section 4.4 for more about rover thermal control). After passing the last radiator, the tubing carried cool fluid past heat exchanger plates on electronic components of the cruise and descent stages before returning to the rover.4 The connections between CHRS and the rover were severed with pyros shortly before landing; the now-disused tubing is still being carried around on Mars by the rover (see Figure 2.29).
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