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ESDMD #1102: Mars Precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance for Human Exploration

Landing human-class vehicles on Mars to within about 100 m, while detecting and avoiding obstacles about 1 m across (bin 5, rating 37 of 57). Lunar landing systems will not be enough, because of the Martian atmosphere, and robotic Mars systems "will not scale to human-class vehicles". Perseverance landed within 5 m of its target using Terrain Relative Navigation, inside a 7.7 km by 6.6 km ellipse. A Mars-only gap, in the Humans to Mars segment (Tech gaps spreadsheet, ESDMD #1102).

Quotations below are from row ESDMD #1102 of the tech gaps spreadsheet. ADD Rev C's Appendix D prints the same table for this gap, and it matches the row field for field (ADD Rev C, p. 253).

Description

"Lunar landing systems will be insufficient to achieve precision landing on Mars. Technologies developed for the Moon may be applicable but insufficient due to differences in entry, descent, and landing (EDL) on Mars, primarily due to the presence of the Martian atmosphere. Precision landing and hazard avoidance systems used for robotic Mars landers will not scale to human-class vehicles."

Impacts and benefits: "Without gap closure, the ability to land in close proximity to science targets and surface assets is reduced. With gap closure, the ability to land in low-visibility conditions (e.g., dust storms) could significantly lower loss of mission risk."

Current state of the art

"Perseverance had a landing ellipse of 7.7 km x 6.6 km. This EDL architecture does not scale to human-class vehicles. The Perseverance Terrain Relative Navigation system enabled landing accuracy to within 5 m of the final designated landing target."

Performance target

Mars: "Landing accuracy on order of 100 m. Detect and avoid obstacles on order of 1 m in diameter/depth."

For comparison, the lunar gap #1101 targets "50m landing accuracy" for the Foundational Exploration segment.

Child gaps

  • 1102-01: Real-time mapping technologies for precision landing and hazard detection during Mars descent
  • 1102-02: Characterization and mitigation of plume surface interaction on Mars surface
  • 1102-03: Navigation sensors for Mars precision landing
  • 1102-04: Algorithms and onboard computing to enable Mars precision landing and hazard avoidance
  • 1102-05: Atmospheric entry modeling and simulation to enable precision landing at Mars

The first four parallel the lunar child gaps 1101-01 to 1101-04. The fifth, atmospheric entry modeling, has no lunar counterpart.

Traceability

  • Use cases and functions: UC-C-204 M -- FN-C-207 M
  • Definition tasks: Mars: Crew Mars Descent Availability; Cargo Mars EDL Technology; Crew Mars EDL Technology; EDLA Systems Reuse Strategy

Segments and sub-architectures

Priority

Priority bin 5, overall prioritization rating 37 of 57. It is the first gap in bin 5. The rating is "the gap's location in the prioritized list of gaps", so 1 is the highest priority, and bins group gaps of similar priority, bin 1 highest. Criticality, urgency, breadth and depth set the order; cost is not considered (ADD Rev C, pp. 78, 199; method on the gaps index).

Moon Base relevance

Not established by the sources so far. The gap is Mars-only in the spreadsheet, and the Users Guide does not name it among its near-term Moon Base challenges (Technology and knowledge challenges). The Users Guide's Mars-forward discussion is on Mars-forward.

Sources

Tech gaps spreadsheet, ESDMD #1102 · ADD Rev C, pp. 78, 199, 253 · Mars EDL Challenges (2024), pp. 2–3