Selection and Technology Evaluation of Moon/Mars Transportation Architectures

Abstract

Our purpose is to evaluate and select from a large family of Moon-Mars transportation architectures by integrating a general architecture network model with vehicle computational modules. A complete tradespace of 1162 unique transportation architectures for human missions to the Moon and to Mars provided by an Object Process Network based architecture generator has been interpreted and integrated with subsystem models. Three Mars and five lunar architectures are downselected based on total launch mass to LEO, risk, complexity and further criteria. Sensitivity analysis and trades of mass for dierent advanced propulsion types and in-situ propellant production availability are presented.