A Mars Communication Constellation for Human Exploration and Network Science

This paper analyses the possibility of exploiting a small spacecrafts constellation around Mars to ensure a complete and continuous coverage of the planet, for the purpose of supporting future human and robotic operations and taking advantage of optical transmission techniques. The study foresees such a communications mission to be implemented at least after 2020 and a high data-rate requirement is imposed for the return of huge scientific data from massive robotic exploration or to allow video transmissions from a possible human outpost. In addition, the set-up of a communication constellation around Mars would give the opportunity of exploiting this multi-platform infrastructure to perform network science, that would largely increase our knowledge of the planet. The paper covers all technical aspects of a feasibility study performed for the primary communications mission. Results are presented for the system trade-offs, including communication architecture, constellation configuration and transfer strategy, and the mission analysis optimization, performed through the application of a multi-objective genetic algorithm to two models of increasing difficulty for the low-thrust trajectory definition. The resulting communication architecture is quite complex and includes six 530 kg spacecrafts on two different orbital planes, plus one redundant unit per plane, that ensure complete coverage of the planet's surface; communications between the satellites and Earth are achieved through optical links, that allow lower mass and power consumption with respect to traditional radio-frequency technology, while inter-satellite links and spacecrafts-to-Mars connections are ensured by radio transmissions. The resulting data-rates for Earth-Mars uplink and downlink, satellite-to-satellite and satellite-to-surface are respectively 13.7 Mbps, 10.2 Mbps, 4.8 Mbps and 4.3 Mbps, in worst-case. Two electric propulsion modules are foreseen, to be placed on a C(3)similar to 0 escape orbit with two Zenith Sea Launch rockets in March 2021 and carrying four satellites each. After the entrance in Mars sphere of influence, the single spacecrafts separate and spiral-down with Hall effect thrusters until they reach the final operational orbits in April 2025, at 17,030 km of altitude and 37 deg of inclination. The preliminary design includes 105 kg and 577 W of mass and power margin for each satellite, that can be allocated for scientific payloads. The main challenges of the proposed design are represented by the optical technology development and the connected strict pointing constraints satisfaction, as well as by the Martian constellation operations management. This mission study has therefore shown the possibility of deploying all effective communication infrastructure in Mars orbit employing a small amount of the resources needed for the human exploration programme, additionally providing the chance of performing important scientific research either from orbit or with a network of small rovers carried on-board and deployed on the surface.