A systems and cost analysis of human rated Mars entry, descent, and landing vehicles

Cost is one of the biggest obstacles to sending humans to Mars. However, spacecraft costs are typically not taken into consideration until after the preliminary vehicle and mission concepts have been designed. Once costs have been estimated, managers and project teams often lack confidence that the final cost of the mission will match the preliminary estimates. The present work provides a robust methodology for using cost as a valid metric early in the design phase of future human Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) vehicles. This is done in three parts. First, state of the art parametric costing methods are applied to three Mars EDL vehicle concepts. Second, a methodology is presented which advances the state of the art in estimating the cost of space vehicles, specifically those used for EDL. This is done by automating portions of the cost estimation process, and integrating parametric cost tools with other systems analysis tools so that the effect of any change in vehicle or mission design on the mission cost can be determined more efficiently. Finally two of the primary parametric cost estimating tools used at NASA and in industry are tested in a blind validation study. To date, no such validation study has been published in the literature. In addition, standard parametric cost estimating methodologies and assumptions are compared with historical data and are modified to improve predictive capabilities --Abstract, page iv