Operational assessment of the pressurized planetary rover Rama

Future manned space missions to the Moon or to Mars will require a vehicle for transporting astronauts in a controlled and protected environment and in relative comfort during surface traverses of these planetary bodies. The vehicle that will be needed is a pressurized rover which provides the astronauts a habitat, a refuge and a research laboratory/workshop. RAMA (Rover for Advanced Mission Applications) is a pressurized Moon-Mars rover concept, recently developed by the Liquifer Systems Group, Vienna team in the frame of the ldquoEuropean Surface Architecture Study for Planetary Explorationrdquo conducted by ESA. RAMA feeds into Europe's future roadmap and strategy for human space exploration. The focus of this paper is on the operational aspects of the RAMA concept, consolidated by operational scenarios that are developed for planetary surface exploration missions.