ORBIT SELECTION AND ITS IMPACT ON RADIATION WARNING ARCHITECTURE FOR A HUMAN MISSION TO MARS

With the recent announcement of the discovery of the possibility of li fe on Mars, there is renewed interest in Mars missions, perhaps eventu ally in human missions. Astronauts on such missions are at risk to occ asional periods of enhanced high energy particle flux from the sun kno wn as Solar Particle Events. These events can pose a substantial risk to the health of the astronauts and to the on-board electronics. Effec tive forecast and warning of these events could provide time to take s teps to minimize the risk (retreating to a safe haven, shutting down s ensitive equipment, etc.) Providing that forecast capability will requ ire additional monitoring capability. The extent of this architecture is sensitive to the orbit selected for the transfer to and from Mars. This paper looks at the major classes of Mars missions (Conjunction an d Opposition) and subcategories of these classes and draws conclusions on the number of monitoring satellites needed for each, with a goal t o reducing total system cost through optimum orbit selection. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.