An aero-capture strategy for human rated interplanetary exploration missions

Future space exploration missions may include transportation of human to the Mars and other planets. Interplanetary explorations missions may involve entry and/or re-entry of a spacecraft into the atmosphere of a planet. An entry vehicle (spacecraft's module which enters the planetary atmosphere) approaching a planet enters the atmosphere at a speed of more than the first escape velocity of that planet. The amount of kinetic as well as the potential energy possessed by the entry vehicle moving at such a high velocity is considerably very large. As the entry vehicle penetrates into the planetary atmosphere, this energy is transformed into heat energy. Future human rated exploration missions having plans to encounter atmospheric entry, require proper entry strategy with sufficient touchdown accuracy and without compromising the vehicle structural integrity or endangering the crew. A concept of an entry strategy with controlled constant altitude phase is proposed here, which combines two different concepts of entry strategies, i.e. Direct Entry and Aero-Capture. The proposed method avoids the complexity of orbiting and de-orbiting the vehicle as in case of aero-capture and this method gives and advantage of lower deceleration and heat loads in comparison of direct entry.