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ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA ›› 2015, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (2): 422-440.doi: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2014.0279

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Review and prospect of decelerator technologies for Mars entry

LI Shuang1,2, JIANG Xiuqiang1,2   

  1. 1. College of Astronautics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China;
    2. Space New Technology Laboratory, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
  • Received:2014-04-15 Revised:2014-10-08 Online:2015-02-15 Published:2014-10-09
  • Supported by:

    National Natural Science Foundation of China (61273051, 60804057); National High-tech Research and Development Program of China (2011AA7034057E, 2012AA121601)

Abstract:

With the continuous progress of the Mars exploration, future Mars missions, such as Mars sample return, manned Mars missions, and Mars base, require the lander with a larger size and heavier mass to land on the surface of the Mars, thus inevitably need more efficient deceleration technologies for Mars atmospheric entry. The history of aerodynamic deceleration for Mars entry is reviewed first based on the past successful Mars landing missions in the paper. Then, the characteristics and challenges of decelerator technologies encountered during Mars entry are analyzed in detail. And the system configuration and state-of-art of the inflatable decelerator, deployable decelerator and supersonic retro-propulsion decelerator are summarized. Finally, a more comprehensive analysis and outlook for these three Mars entry decelerators are conducted.

Key words: Mars entry, high-mass landing mission, inflatable decelerator, deployable decelerator, supersonic retro-propulsion decelerator

CLC Number: