Related papers: Human Mars Exploration and Expedition Challenges
Deep space exploration offers the most profound opportunity for the expansion of humanity and our understanding of the Universe, but remains extremely challenging. Progress will continue to be paced by uncrewed missions followed up by…
This review focuses on recent results in advancing our understanding of the location and distribution of habitable exo-Earth environments. We first review the qualities that define a habitable planet/moon environment. We extend these…
Current and future optical technologies will aid exploration of the Moon and Mars while advancing fundamental physics research in the solar system. Technologies and possible improvements in the laser-enabled tests of various physical…
The goal of finding and characterizing habitable planets in other solar systems represents one of humanity's greatest scientific challenges. NASA and ESA have initiated studies of missions that could accomplish this goal within the next ten…
Exploration of Mars has been made possible using a series of landers, rovers and orbiters. The HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured high-resolution images covering large tracts of the surface. However, orbital…
With the new discoveries enabled thanks to the recent space missions, stellar physics is going through a revolution. However, these discoveries opened the door to many new questions that require more observations. The European Space…
Future crewed missions to the Moon will face significant environmental and operational challenges, posing risks to the safety and performance of astronauts navigating its inhospitable surface. Whilst head-up displays (HUDs) have proven…
Establishing a human settlement on Mars is an incredibly complex engineering problem. The inhospitable nature of the Martian environment requires any habitat to be largely self-sustaining. Beyond mining a few basic minerals and water, the…
There are at least three compelling reasons for the human race to initiate a major programme to explore and better understand the 'minor planets' of the Solar System: (1) Enhancing scientific knowledge; (2) Mitigating the impact hazard; and…
Future Moon bases will likely be constructed using resources mined from the surface of the Moon. The difficulty of maintaining a human workforce on the Moon and communications lag with Earth means that mining will need to be conducted using…
There is a widely held view in the astronomical community that unmanned robotic space vehicles are, and will always be, more efficient explorers of planetary surfaces than astronauts (e.g. Coates, 2001; Clements 2009; Rees 2011). Partly…
This white paper recognizes gaps in observations that will, when addressed, much improve solar radiation hazard and geomagnetic storm forecasting. Radiation forecasting depends on observations of the entire "Solar Radiation Hemisphere" that…
After decades of relative neglect, interest in Venus surges anew in the planetary science community and the public. New missions are planned and selected, and will pave the way to the decade of Venus, as new observations allow us to uncover…
The task of designing a city-state of one million residents on the planet Mars seemingly approaches the limit of perceived human ingenuity. A city-state on Mars of this capacity requires us to conform to and master the simplest aspects of…
Robotic Exploration has evolved rapidly in the past two decades as new and more complex techniques have been created to explore unknown regions efficiently. Exciting advancements in exploration, autonomous navigation, and sensor technology…
We outline a class of problems, typical of Mars rover operations, that are problematic for current methods of planning under uncertainty. The existing methods fail because they suffer from one or more of the following limitations: 1) they…
The frequently discovered flooding structure on Mars and other planets has long been an intriguing mystery remained un-disclosed so far. Considering that on Earth, quite a few low melting point liquid metals or their alloy can be candidates…
The abstract is additional with repect to the paper published in JGCD. Ordinary Earth satellites are usually placed into five categories of special orbits: sun-synchronous orbits, orbits at the critical inclination, frozen orbits, repeating…
Landing robotic spacecrafts and humans on Mars has become one of the inevitable technological necessities for humans. Effectuating perfect Mars expedition requires landing of enormous cargoes, crewed modules, ascent vehicles, and scientific…
Utilisation of the material and energy resources of the Solar System will be essential for the development of a sustainable space economy and associated infrastructure. Science will be a major beneficiary of a space economy, even if its…