The conceptual design of a novel, small and simple Mars lander

This paper presents a novel design result of a small, simple Mars lander. Currently, Mars is a target for the potential habitable areas. Understanding of characterization of Mars' surface and atmosphere will be an important heritage in future development. Mars landing missions generally require enormous budgets, long periods for the design, and mature technology. Hence, only limited space agencies have been able to plan and execute Mars landing missions. In order to change this situation, this paper proposes a design result of a novel, small and simple Mars lander that can be easily constructed and operated even by organizations with limited resources and technology such as universities or emerging countries. Our design target is a lander whose size and weight are under 1 m cube and 100 kg before launch, including a 7 kg payload. Our designed spacecraft overcomes the difficulty of Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) by using only a membrane aeroshell and a vented airbag. By conducting iterative and continuous simulations of entry and landing sequences, a feasible design result that satisfies the targeted conditions was obtained. This paper presents a feasible mass sizing and configuration of the components on the targeted small lander against the requirements of each mission sequence. In addition, this paper presents a feasible thermal and power plan while conducting a mission on Martian ground. The feasibility of the conceptual design is shown by numerical simulations using actual observation data.