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Wikipedia seems to imply that the plan for Red Dragon is a direct atmospheric entry. It makes sense, they don't have a second stage that would last long enough
by kirrent 9y ago
Wikipedia seems to imply that the plan for Red Dragon is a direct atmospheric entry. It makes sense, they don't have a second stage that would last long enough to get there. They don't have the delta-V to get the second stage into a mars transfer with a huge amount of fuel and I doubt there's much utility in spending the 2.3km/s (or thereabouts) of delta-v in getting from the Mars transfer to a low Mars orbit when you can just use aerobraking instead. In fact, it would be highly abnormal for a probe to visit Mars orbit before landing.
- dotancohen 9y agoThere is no dichotomy in aerobraking vs orbit. In fact, I believe most interplanetary orbiters (Galileo, Cassini) used aerobraking to achieve orbit.
- zardo 9y agoThey didn't. Aerocapture has only ever been done on Earth.
- ethbro 9y agoNow I'm curious to run the numbers on how lenient the window is for (I'd assume it would have to be) single pass aerocapture on Mars. And especially interested on what the options for the problem scenarios look like (e.g. burning off too much or not enough velocity).