Mars Exploration Entry and Descent and Landing Technology Assessment Figures of Merit

An assessment of Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) technologies necessary to increase the payload capabilities for Mars missions was performed as part of the NASA EDL Systems Analysis (EDL-SA) Project. The focus for the first year of the study was on Exploration-class missions, i.e. missions requiring between 1050 metric tons (mt) of landed payload. Ultimately, the EDL-SA Project will use the results of the technology assessment to form the basis for a technology roadmap that will be used to guide future investments in EDL technologies. The assessment of the technologies was based on scoring Figures of Merit (FOM). Thirteen FOMs were used from five FOM categories: Safety and Mission Success, Performance and Effectiveness, Programmatic Risk, Affordability and Life Cycle Cost, and Applicability to Other Missions. Each FOM score was derived from proxy parameters and discriminating factors based on three classes of data sources: Simulation and Analysis, Previous Published Results, and Expert Opinion. The results of the assessment show that while the deployable decelerators offer mass savings over traditional rigid decelerators, they come with higher technical and programmatic risk. An all propulsive option would result in lower technical and programmatic risk at the cost of much higher arrival mass. The more traditional rigid heat shield base configurations offer a balance of technical and programmatic risk with moderate arrival masses.