Cumbrian Sky

It seems that quietly, and without any fanfare or public announcement, NASA has actually set a date - at least in its own mind - for the first manned mission to Mars...

SOURCE:Flight International
NASA manned Mars mission details emerge
By Rob Coppinger

A 400,000kg (880,000lb) Marship would be assembled in orbit using the Ares V
cargo launch vehicle for a 900-day mission to the red planet, according to
details that have emerged about NASA's new Constellation programme's manned Mars mission.

The spacecraft would take a "minimal crew" to Mars in six to seven months, with the crew spending up to 550 days on the surface, according to the programme's design reference architecture 5.0, currently in development.

Each of the three to four Ares V rockets used to launch the Marship elements
into low Earth orbit would need a 125,000kg payload capacity and use a 10m
(32.7ft) fairing.

Crews would be sent every 26 months, will need up to 50,000kg of cargo, use an
aerodynamic and powered descent method and the 40min communications delay
between Earth and Mars would require autonomy or at least asynchronous operation with mission control.

Notionally launched in February 2031, the first crew's flight would be preceded
by the cargo lander and surface habitat being sent in December 2028 and January 2029, respectively using two Ares V launches.

The lander will arrive around October 2029 and the habitat November the same
year. Nuclear power is the preferred surface energy source. The crew will arrive
in August 2031.

A second mission's habitat and lander will be launched by two Ares Vs in late
2030/early 2031 to reach Mars at the same time as the first crew. In the first
quarter of 2033, the second mission's crew will leave Earth to arrive at Mars by
December, while the first crew leaves Mars in January 2033 after a 17-month
stay, to reach Earth by September.

The details were included in a presentation at "Enabling Exploration: The Lunar
Outpost and Beyond", the October meeting of NASA's Lunar exploration analysis group.

It also states, "Conjunction class missions (long-stay) [have] fast
inter-planetary transits. Successive missions provide functional overlap of
mission assets," referring to the presence of a following mission's habitat and
cargo lander being on Mars when its preceding mission's crew are there already.

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I stumbled across that story on Spacetoday,net, and it's particularly interesting because it seems to contradict a later date - 2037 - quoted by NASA head Mike Griffin fairly recently. It's good news tho - it means NASA are actually making concrete plans instead of vaguely throwing around "aims" and "aspirations"... but I still think NASA will be beaten to Mars by others, or that date will leap forwards when a probe or rover finds ecvidence of life on the Red Planet... ooh, there's a prediction for you! :-)

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• #1 Comment from atomicorrery 
  11/29/07 4:15 AM | Permalink

  What on Eart...(Mars?!) is a "minimal crew"?
  
  2? 6? ...One?!??