meetings - Space Flight Mechanics Committee

16:15 AAS Verification and Validation of the MSL/Curiosity Rover Entry Descent and
13-464 Landing System
Richard Kornfeld, NASA / Caltech JPL; Ravi Prakash, NASA / Caltech JPL; Allen
Chen, NASA / Caltech JPL; Ann Devereaux, NASA / Caltech JPL; Martin Greco,
NASA / Caltech JPL; Corey Harmon, NASA / Caltech JPL; Devin Kipp, NASA /
Caltech JPL; Alejandro San Martin, NASA / Caltech JPL; Steven Sell, NASA /
Caltech JPL; Adam Steltzner, NASA / Caltech JPL
On August 5/6, 2012, the Curiosity rover successfully touched down on the Martian surface
setting off the most ambitious surface exploration of this planetary body. Preceding this
significant step were years of design, development and testing of the Curiosity Entry,
Descent and Landing (EDL) system to prepare for the most complex landing endeavor ever
attempted at Mars. This paper discusses the approach and implementation of the overall
EDL verification and validation (V&V) program. The lessons learned and conclusions
described herein can serve as a pathfinder for the EDL system testing approach and
implementation of future Mars landed missions.
16:35 AAS Managing Complexity in the MSL/Curiosity Entry, Descent, and Landing
13-463 Flight Software and Avionics Verification and Validation Campaign
Aaron Stehura, NASA / Caltech JPL; Matthew Rozek, NASA / Caltech JPL
The complexity of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission presented the Entry,
Descent, and Landing systems engineering team with many challenges in its Verification
and Validation (V&V) campaign. This paper describes some of the logistical hurdles related
to managing a complex set of requirements, test venues, test objectives, and analysis
products faced by the authors as they implemented a specific portion of V&V to test the
interaction of flight software with the MSL avionics. Application-specific solutions to these
problems are presented herein, which can be generalized to other space missions and to
similar formidable systems engineering problems.
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23 rd AAS / AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting