SH017-0016
Space Launch System Payload Stage Capability for Ultra-High Characteristic Energy Missions

Wednesday, 9 December 2020
Poster
Robert Stough1, Kimberly Robinson1, David Hitt2, Michael Vincent Paul3, Ralph L McNutt Jr4, Steven R. Vernon5, Pontus C. Brandt4, Wayne Schlei6 and Erika Alvarez1, (1)NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, United States, (2)Analytical Services Inc., Huntsville, AL, United States, (3)The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Space Exploration Sector, Laurel, MD, United States, (4)Johns Hopkins Univ/APL, Laurel, MD, United States, (5)Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Space Exploration Sector, Laurel, MD, United States, (6)Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, United States
Abstract:
The Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle is NASA’s cornerstone capability for a new era of human and robotic exploration of deep space. The unrivalled performance of SLS provides the capability to launch the first woman and next man to walk on the lunar surface and to support development of a sustained human presence in cislunar space, and ultimately human missions to Mars. As an evolvable capability with unique launch performance, the opportunities enabled by SLS also include game-changing benefits for science missions, including probes to the outer solar system and beyond.

For the last two years, the SLS Program has worked with the Interstellar Probe team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to provide data that describe how SLS could support a mission that would break through the boundary of the heliosphere and into pristine interstellar space only a decade after launch, enabling earlier science return and greatly increasing spacecraft life in the interstellar medium. In record-breaking time, the ISP as launched on SLS may answer questions raised by the extended mission of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. While the SLS Block 2 offer benefits for exploration of the outer planets, adding one or more additional stages to this architecture makes it even more capable for missions beyond our solar system, offering more realistically appealing flight times that would allow the mission scientists to reap the rewards of exploration.

This presentation details the significant benefits SLS can provides for very high characteristic (C3) energy missions by coupling the capabilities of SLS to current commercial rocket propulsion stage systems. These capabilities are explored specifically in the context of an Interstellar Probe architecture in which a small, capable science probe, coupled with carefully tailored mission design trajectories, could be used to explore the outer solar system and the interstellar medium. The presentation will also address the operational logistics of integrating such a mission, explaining the options available for “non-standard” SLS payloads, including processing those with radioisotope power generators or additional propulsion stages.

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