Landing wind environment for future Mars landers

Mars has become a high priority science target for a number of spacefaring nations including the United States, Russia, Europe, and Japan. A major component of these missions are landers which will carry out a variety of in-situ measurements. The ability to reach the surface safely depends, in part,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in space research 1997, Vol.19 (8), p.1291-1291
Main Author: Haberle, R.M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Mars has become a high priority science target for a number of spacefaring nations including the United States, Russia, Europe, and Japan. A major component of these missions are landers which will carry out a variety of in-situ measurements. The ability to reach the surface safely depends, in part, on the low level winds at the time of entry as most landing systems are designed to accomodate wind speeds up to a given value (generally 20-30 m/s). For the past several years, the NASA/Ames Mars General Circulation Model has been used to study the low level wind environment for the Pathfinder, Mars 96 (now 98), and MarsNet (now InterMarsnet) missions. The model is currently being used to simulate winds for NASA's Surveyor landers and for mobility studies using balloons as platforms of exploration. In this paper, I will review the results of these efforts with emphasis on the Pathfinder, Mars 98, and the 98 Surveyor Landers.
ISSN:0273-1177
1879-1948
DOI:10.1016/S0273-1177(97)83134-1