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Water Electrolysis for Propulsion of a Crewed Mars

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Water Electrolysis for Propulsion of a Crewed Mars ( water-electrolysis-propulsion-crewed-mars )

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B. Pre-positioning H2O, 450 s ISP, Lunar L2 Departure: 3xSLS and 1x FH Launches The first SLS launch places the transit habitat, solar array, and crew vehicle RCS to LL2. The second SLS launch delivers an LL2 depot with 48.5 t of propellant. The crew are delivered in an Orion MPCV by a FH launch, along with the crew vehicle engine. The dedicated reboost module from the baseline architecture is eliminated, because the vehicle is launched in fewer separate pieces, so a 120 day assembly time is not needed. Because the vehicle mass is substantially reduced this way, such an architecture requires significantly less RCS propellant. A third SLS launch, chronologically the first, delivers 36.5 t of water to Mars orbit for the return trip. This delivery is performed concurrently with two other cargo vehicles sent the preceding launch window to the crew mission. The complete mission is accomplished with only three SLS launches and a single FH launch. The cost savings of this depends on the cost of an individual SLS launch; as discussed in the next section, this should be at least $500M. A summary of the vehicle at departure from LL2 is found in Table III-3, and a summary of the launch manifests in Table III-4. When the propellant for the return trip is finished electrolyzing, the majority of the solar panels can be jettisoned to improve the mass ratio for the trans-Earth injection maneuver. Their excess power is no longer needed at this point. This is not necessary to accomplish the maneuver, but it reduces the propellant which must be taken from the Mars depot. The Mars delivery has a glut of propellant for the return trip. When considering the projected remaining propellant from Mars orbit injection, and the possibility of discarding the solar array, under half of this propellant is needed for trans-Earth injection. Therefore, this architecture could support two consecutive Mars missions with only five SLS launches and two FH launches between them for the crew vehicle. Table III-3: 450 s, 3xSLS 1xFH Vehicle Summary Vehicle Element Mass (t) Propulsion Engine 6 Tank 1.64 Propellant 48.5 RCS 3 Total Module Mass 59.13 Number of Modules 1.0 Total Stage Mass 59.13 Payload Transit Habitat 41.3 CM+Crew 10.6 Solar Array 5.1 Total Vehicle Mass 116.13 Table III-4: 450 s, 3xSLS 1xFH Launch Manifests Launch Manifest Mass (t) SLS Block 2 1 36.5 t of H2O delivered to Mars orbit. 39.11 to Mars 2 Transit Hab, Solar Array, RCS 49.4 to LL2 3 48.5 t of H2O delivered to LL2 50 to LL2 FH 1 6 crew in Orion MPCV, plus propulsion engine 16.6 to HEO Total Mass to Orbit 155.11 14 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Downloaded by NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTRE on January 30, 2018 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2018-1537

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