Study on strategies for planetary exploration within the HG-project “Planetary Evolution and Life”

The search for life and water on other planetary bodies is of high interest for the space science community. Since 2008, Helmholtz Association (HG) supports a project, the so-called Helmholtz Alliance for “Planetary Evolution and Life”, which was set up with members consisting of planetary scientists and engineers. In this project, members aim at solving some of the important questions on how life formed, evolved on Earth as well as potentially on other extraterrestrial bodies. We, the engineers are concerned with mission concept and systems design in order to assist the scientists by identifying solutions through innovative and feasible mission concepts. As this work is always driven by the science objectives on one hand and the technological capabilities on the other hand, we developed a science-driven approach to mission design. A review of the options of available technology and limitations of state of the art technology will be presented in this paper. A survey of all scientists in the alliance was made to understand science objectives and an appropriate mission concept is chosen. One such mission concept is the “Mars Cave Explorer” that was conceptualized based on the need to explore sub-surface caves on Mars. This mission uses a rover to carry a set of miniaturized robots onboard. The optimization approach followed for designing the main rover follows a Genetic Algorithm, an evolutionary algorithm as a systems engineering tool. It is used for identifying suitable design parameters iteratively. Also the challenges faced by the rover designer for cave exploration on Mars is studied and described.