Interplanetary Trajectory Analysis for 2020-2040 Mars Missions Including Venus Flyby Opportunities

Abstract

This paper develops a tool which is capable of calculating ballistic interplanetary trajectories with planetary flyby options based on the knowledge of astrodynamics and analyzes Mars trajectories in the time frame 2020 to 2040, including transfer trajectories with Venus flybys. Using the trajectory programs developed in this work, we investigate the relation between departure and arrival dates and energy required for the transfer trajectories. The contours of C3 or ∆Vtot for a range of departure dates and times of flight would be useful for the creation of a long-term Earth-Mars and Mars-Earth transportation schedule for mission planning purposes. For planetary flybys, we allow simple powered flybys with the velocity impulse at periapsis to expand the flyby mission windows. Having obtained the results for Earth-Mars direct trajectories by a computation and Earth-VenusMars flyby trajectories by a pseudo full-factorial computation, we discuss the nature of the trajectories and the competitiveness of Earth-Venus-Mars flyby trajectory windows with Earth-Mars direct trajectory windows.