Related papers: Minimal mass design of a tensegrity tower for luna…

A tensegrity tower design to support a given payload for the moon mining operation is proposed in this paper. A non-linear optimization problem for the minimal-mass structure design is posed and solved, subject to the yielding constraints…

During the last decade, tensegrity systems have been the focus of numerous investigations exploring the possibility of adopting them for planetary landing and exploration applications. Early approaches mainly focused on locomotion aspects…

Recent successful lunar landing missions have generated significant interest among space agencies in establishing a permanent human settlement on the Moon. Building a lunar base requires multiple and frequent landing missions to support…

Reducing the forces necessary to construct projects like landing pads and blast walls is possibly one of the major drivers in reducing the costs of establishing lunar settlements. The interlock drive system generates traction by penetrating…

Mid-Air Deployment (MAD) of a rotorcraft during Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) on Mars eliminates the need to carry a propulsion or airbag landing system. This reduces the total mass inside the aeroshell by more than 100 kg and simplifies…

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…

Normally a passive object launched from the Moon at less than the escape velocity orbits the Moon once and then crashes back to the launch site. We show that thanks to lunar gravity anomalies, for specific launch sites and directions, a…

Multiple nations are planning activity on the Moon's surface, and to deconflict lunar operations we must understand the sandblasting damage from rocket exhaust blowing soil. Prior research disagreed over the scaling of the erosion rate,…

The application of directed energy to spacecraft mission design is explored using rapid transit to Mars as the design objective. An Earth-based laser array of unprecedented size (10~m diameter) and power (100~MW) is assumed to be enabled by…

A method and facilities for delivering payload and people into outer space are presented. This method uses, in general, engines located on a planetary surface. The installation consists of a space apparatus, power drive stations, which…

We assess the possibility of reducing the travel time of a crewed mission to Mars by examining four different propulsion methods and keeping the mass at departure under 2500 tonne, for a fixed architecture. We evaluated representative…

Electromagnetic propulsion technology has been thought to provide a potential form of future spacecraft propulsion for some time. In contrast to ion thrusters, which utilize the Coulomb force to accelerate positively charged species,…

In the companion paper ("Erosion rate of lunar soil under a landing rocket, part 1: identifying the rate-limiting physics", this issue) an equation was developed for the rate that lunar soil erodes under the exhaust of a landing rocket.…

Laser-accelerated lightsails enable new types of missions that are very different from the Breakthrough Starshot mission to the Centauri system that aims to send 1 gram of payload at 0.2 c. The present work widens the mission design space…

Utilizing locally available materials is a crucial step towards sustainable planetary habitation. Lunar regolith has gained tremendous interest in additive manufacturing in the past decades. However, due to the constrained manufacturing…

The prospect of establishing extra-terrestrial habitats using in situ resource utilization (ISRU) constitutes a long-term goal of multiple space agencies around the world. In this work, we investigate sintering as a potential route for…

The concept of a space elevator dates back to Tsilokovsky, but they are not commonly considered in near-term plans for space exploration, perhaps because a terrestrial elevator would not be possible without considerable improvements in…

For low-energy missions to the Moon and beyond, Ballistic Capture has proven to be a valuable technique for enabling orbital insertion while alleviating propulsion system requirements. This approach offers two key advantages. First, it…

Given the increasing need for large aperture antennas in space missions, the difficulty of fitting such structures into small launch vehicles has prompted the design of deployable antenna systems. The thesis introduces a new Triple Scissors…

The European Moon Rover System (EMRS) Pre-Phase A activity is part of the European Exploration Envelope Programme (E3P) that seeks to develop a versatile surface mobility solution for future lunar missions. These missions include: the Polar…