Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Aerocapture Mission Set

Calculations have been performed to quantify the cost and delivered mass advantages of aerocapture at all destinations in the Solar System with significant atmospheres. A total of eleven representative missions were defined for the eight possible destinations and complete launch-to-orbit insertion architectures constructed. Direct comparisons were made between aerocapture and competing orbit insertion techniques based on state-of-the-art and advanced chemical propulsion, solar electric propulsion, and aerobraking. The results show that three of the missions cannot be done without aerocapture: delivery of spacecraft into Neptune elliptical orbits, Saturn circular orbits, and Jupiter circular orbits. Aerocapture was found to substantially reduce the cost per unit mass delivered into orbit for five other missions based on a heavy launch vehicle: Venus circular orbits (55% reduction in $/kg costs), Venus elliptical orbits (43% reduction); Mars circular orbits (12% reduction), Titan circular orbits (75% reduction), and Uranus circular orbits (69% reduction). These results were found to be relatively insensitive to 30% increases in both the estimated aerocapture system mass and system cost, suggesting that even modestly performing aerocapture systems will yield substantial mission benefits. Two other missions consisting of spacecraft inserted into high eccentricity elliptical orbits at Mars and Jupiter were shown to be not improved by aerocapture. The last mission in the set consisting of an aeroassisted orbit transfer at Earth showed that aerocapture offered a 32% $/kg reduction compared to chemical propulsion, but that aerobraking offered even better performance. Nevertheless, the