The Evolution of Guidance, Navigation, and Control in Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing

From Viking in the 70's to MSL/Curiosity in the present, Guidance, Navigation, and Control for Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL), has varied dramatically in form and function, as it had to adapt to different types of landing architectures in response to ever changing mission requirements. This presentation will describe the history of EDL GN&C as represented by its functional and performance requirements, and the architectures and implementations needed to satisfy them, starting with the unguided Viking legged-landers, continuing with the Mars Exploration Rover airbag-landers, and concluding with Curiosity's fully guided Entry and SkyCrane-lander.

Miguel San Martin

5/15/2013 6:00:00 PM