Earth2Mars: A Shared International Concept for Lower Cost Mars Missions

A shared goal among International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG) members is to lower the cost of Mars missions. IMEWG’s Lower Cost Mission Working Group (LCMWG) collaboratively developed two shared objectives to meet member nations’ high-priority, mission-enabling strategies for Mars exploration: 1) development of lower cost transportation systems and 2) development of a robust Mars telecommunications relay network that also supports Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) services for Mars orbiters and landed vehicles (landers, rovers, aerobots). To contribute new insights to the design and development of delivery and telecommunications systems for Mars exploration, IMEWG’s LCMWG conducted its first Earth to Mars (E2M) Study. E2M-1 demonstrated the feasibility of meeting significant, real-world complexities of supporting a wide variety of independently developed multinational payloads with shared delivery and telecommunications relay services. It also met a major goal in demonstrating the technical feasibility of both chemical and electric propulsion solutions for delivering and deploying multiple payloads. For service providers, the study also provided an early indicator of an emerging payload customer demand for Mars exploration. A key recommendation for telecommunications relay is the extension of services through the potential addition of a high-rate crosslink with other future orbiters for both a return on investment for payload customers and extended service opportunities for tug/telecom service providers. To keep element and mission costs and complexity low, the study suggests the development of standards (including those for planetary protection), and continued development of processes that streamline international mission planning, payload accommodations, and distributed scientific investigations for shared, high-priority science goals.