Overview of Entry Descent and landing investments in the NASA Exploration Technology Development Program

Landing humans on Mars is perhaps the largest Entry, Descent and Landing challenge for this (or any) generation of NASA engineers. Essentially all current Mars EDL technology is based on development efforts in support of the Viking program in the 1960's and 1970's. Since that time, these key technologies have been tweaked and some additions have been added in order to extend the landed mass and altitude capabilities, but it has become clear that this technology suite is fundamentally limited to a landed mass of ~1.25 metric tons. In contrast, current system studies for human Mars missions indicate a 40 t required landed mass. Clearly, a revolutionary change to the current state of the art is required in order to enable such ambitious missions. The present paper briefly discusses some of the recent NASA systems analysis work that has defined candidate technologies as well as overall system requirements for human landings. Those requirements were used to define a new technology development project within the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in 2010. This Entry Descent and Landing Technology Development Project is currently investing in three major technology areas: rigid and flexible thermal protection systems, supersonic retro-propulsion systems, and simulation models & tools. The project portfolio in each of these areas is briefly discussed and some current results obtained in the first year of execution are presented. The project will continue in 2011, and has developed technology development roadmaps that would support the maturation of all of their technology investments to a Technology Readiness Level of 5 or 6 by 2016 in order to support infusion of the technologies onto either science missions or precursor exploration missions to Mars, potentially as early as 2018 or 2020.