EFFECT OF PARKING ORBIT PERIOD ON AEROCAPTURE FOR MANNED MARS MISSIONS

Aerocapture has previously been identified as a critical technology fo r manned Mars missions. A wide range of parking orbits is available in to which an aerobraking vehicle could be captured, and earlier authors have advocated different target orbits for various reasons. The choic e of the parking orbit impacts the amount of energy which must be diss ipated during the atmospheric trajectory. The effect of this choice on the entry corridor width, the required vehicle L/D, and the aerotherm al environment are explored in this paper.