Qualitative Assessment of Aerocapture and Applications to Future Missions

What is it about?

We studied the current state of readiness of Aerocapture at several planetary bodies to identify what technologies are needed, and to determine if a technology demonstration mission is required, prior to the first use of aerocapture for a science mission. The study team concluded that the current state of readiness is destination dependent, but an end-to-end, system-level technology demonstration mission is not necessary before the use of aerocapture for a NASA science mission.

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