meetings - Space Flight Mechanics Committee

Feb 13, 2013
Puna Room C&D
SESSION 24: SPECIAL SESSION: MARS SCIENCE LABORATORY (MSL) -- III
Chair: Dr. Eric Gustafson, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
13:30 AAS Powered Flight Design and Reconstructed Performance Summary for the
13-424 Mars Science Laboratory Mission
Steven Sell, NASA / Caltech JPL
The Powered Flight segment of Mars Science Laboratory’s Entry, Descent, and Landing
system extends from backshell separation through landing. Although this segment removes
less than 0.1% of the kinetic energy dissipated during EDL, any segment that ends in
touchdown on the surface of Mars is particularly critical. This paper provides an overview
of the powered flight design, key features, and event timeline. It also summarizes
Curiosity’s as flown performance on the night of August 5th as reconstructed by the flight
team.
13:50 AAS Approach and Entry, Descent, and Landing Operations for the Mars Science
13-425 Laboratory Mission
Allen Chen, NASA / Caltech JPL
On August 5th, 2012, at 10:31 PM PDT, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover
Curiosity landed safely within Gale Crater. Her successful landing depended not only upon
the flawless execution of the numerous critical activities during the seven minute entry,
descent, and landing (EDL), but also upon the operational preparations and decisions made
by the flight team during approach, the final weeks, days, and hours prior to landing. This
paper summarizes the operations plans made in preparation for EDL and the as flown
decisions and actions executed that balanced the operational and EDL risks.
14:10 AAS The Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing Flight Software
13-426 Kim Gostelow, NASA / Caltech JPL
This paper describes the design, development, and testing of the EDL program from the
perspective of the software engineer. We briefly cover the overall MSL flight software
organization, and then the organization of EDL itself. We discuss the timeline, the structure
of the GNC code (but not the algorithms as they are covered elsewhere in this conference)
and the command and telemetry interfaces. Finally, we cover testing and the influence that
testability had on the EDL flight software design.
14:30 AAS Design and Development of the MSL Descent Stage Propulsion System
13-458 Jeffrey Weiss, NASA / Caltech JPL
On August 5, 2012, The Mars Science Laboratory mission successfully landed the largest
interplanetary rover ever built, Curiosity, on the surface of Mars. The Entry, Descent, and
Landing (EDL) phase of this mission was by far the most complex landing ever attempted
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23 rd AAS / AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting