Status of ESA's on-going and planned technology developments for a Phobos Sample Return mission
- Paper number
IAC-15,A3,IP,28,x30939
- Author
Dr. Sanjay Vijendran, ESA, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Mr. Thomas Voirin, European Space Agency (ESA), The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Mr. Denis Rebuffat, ESA/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Dr. Peter Falkner, European Space Agency (ESA), The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Mr. Jonan Larranaga, Aurora Technology B.V., The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Ms. Hilde Schroeven-Deceuninck, ESA Harwell Centre, United Kingdom
- Coauthor
Dr. Marcos Bavdaz, European Space Agency (ESA), The Netherlands
- Year
2015
- Abstract
ESA is studying a potential Phobos Sample Return mission as one of the post-Exomars missions being considered for the mid-2020's within the Mars Robotic Exploration Preparation (MREP) Programme. This mission, currently being considered jointly with Roscosmos, is intended to retrieve a 100g sample of material from the surface of Phobos and return it to the Earth a few years later. Sample return missions from extra-terrestrial bodies, while having been attempted by other space agencies, has not been performed by ESA before, thus an extensive technology development programme has been underway already for some years in order to bring the critical technologies needed for such missions to a sufficiently high technology readiness level prior to a potential mission adoption decision in the coming years. The technology areas in development include: sampling technologies in the low-gravity environment, propulsion, landing system, Earth return capsule and guidance, navigation and control. This paper will describe the mission concept as well as the status and results of the ESA-funded technology developments that have been recently completed, currently in progress, as well as those in the planning for this mission candidate.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)