Overview of NASA’s Current Materials Development Efforts for Mars EDL

Current roadmaps point to landing heavy masses (cargo, followed by manned vehicles) on Mars in the 2030’s and the existing entry, descent and landing (EDL) technology will not be sufficient to facilitate such missions. In 2009 the Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) established the Entry, Descent and Landing Technology Development Project (EDL TDP), to be managed programmatically at Langley Research Center (LaRC) and technically at Ames Research Center (ARC). The purpose of the project is to further the technologies required to land heavy (~40 metric ton) masses on Mars to facilitate exploration. The EDL TDP contains three technical elements. They are: Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) development Modeling and Tools (MAT) development Supersonic Retropropulsion (SRP) development The primary goals of the EDL TDP TPS element is to design and develop TPS materials capable of withstanding the severe aerothermal loads associated with aerocapture and entry into the Martian atmosphere while significantly decreasing the TPS mass fraction contribution to the entry system. Significant advancements in TPS materials technology are needed in order to enable heavy mass payloads to be successfully landed on the Martian surface for robotic precursor and subsequent human exploration missions. The EDL TDP TPS element is further divided into two different TPS concepts for Mars EDL those being: Rigid TPS for a mid L/D aeroshell with the capability to withstand dual pulsed heating environments as high as 500 W/cm2 for aerocapture and 130 W/cm2 for entry Flexible TPS for a deployable aerodynamic decelerator with the capability to withstand dual pulsed heating environments as high as 120 W/cm2 for aerocapture and 30 W/cm2 for entry NASA, along with its vendors, has begun developing and testing materials for each of the deceleration approaches. These include multi-layer rigid ablators and flexible ablative materials. In order to model the response of these types of materials, new and improved modeling techniques will be required. This presentation will outline the types of materials that are under development and illustrate the need for advancement in modeling of ablative materials