| Summary: | The long-term sustainable human exploration of Mars is approached via the design and analysis of an orbital logistics architecture as part of a robust logistics infrastructure. In this investigation, we analyze the advantages of an orbital logistics node around Mars (which we call Mars Spacedock), which plays a crucial role to support the transport of vehicles and resupply of cargo to a base on the surface. The Mars Spacedock serves as one of the many logistics nodes at different locations between Earth and Mars that support the continuous movement of crew and cargo to and from Mars for the next several decades. The need of multiple nodes at strategic locations is supported by lessons learned from terrestrial analogs of complex missions such as military, Antarctic exploration, and the International Space Station. The Mars Spacedock is envisaged to have at least aggregation, refueling, resupply and refurbishing capabilities. The stationing orbit of the Spacedock is one of the primary design drivers in determining the associated propellant requirement and surface accessibility. The stationing orbit is selected from a range of Mars orbits such that it best accommodates (delta V cost being a major determinant) arrival from a variety of interplanetary approaches, capture into Mars orbit, deorbit and entry into Mars atmosphere, surface accessibility, launch from surface to stationing orbit, and departure to Earth. A variety of mission types are evaluated over a 15-year cycle as follows: long-stay crewed missions, short-stay crewed missions, cargo transfer missions on low-thrust and ballistic trajectories. The perturbation of orbits due to aspherical gravity of Mars and timeline of missions are found to be crucial factors in selection of orbit. The Low Mars Orbits are found to be comparable to the Highly Elliptical Mars Orbits in total delta V requirement. The optimal stationing orbit is selected by minimizing a combination of mission propellant mass and transfer time for a given set of mission parameters. The ...
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