The manned exploration of Mars will require the development of one or more enabling technologies. Employing the go as you pay philosophy of the Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program, the timelines for the early flights will be strongly influenced by our ability to fashion innovative, productive missions using existing or near-term technologies to the maximum extent possible. In this paper, the potential benefits of nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) employing SP-100 reactor technology for unmanned Mars cargo missions are investigated. Results suggest that only moderate growth of current technology is necessary to deliver useful cargo payloads with reasonable transfer times.
NEP options for the early phases of manned Mars exploration
1991-09-01
Conference paper
No indication
English
Trajectory Options for Manned Mars Missions
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