Mars orbit rendezvous

Artist's concept of a Mars orbit rendezvous between a spaceship and the Martian ascent stage.

Mars orbit rendezvous (MOR) is a concept for space travel, where a spacecraft takes off from Mars (a martian ascent stage) and does a rendezvous in Mars orbit with another spacecraft.^[1] Applied to a Mars sample return or manned mission to Mars, it allows much less weight to be sent to the surface and back into orbit, because the fuel needed to travel back to Earth is not landed on the planet.^{[1][not specific enough to verify]} It can also be used for a Mars sample return.^{[2] [3]} NASA developed designs for a combination of a mars lander, surface habitat, and ascent vehicle called a Mars Excursion Module (MEM) in the 1960s for its human mars mission plans.

MOR is analogous to Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) used on the United States NASA Apollo program missions to Earth's moon during 1969 to 1972 (as opposed to Earth orbit rendezvous(EOR) or Direct ascent).^[1]

Another variation is a Mars flyby rendezvous, where the mother ship (such as a Mars cycler) does not enter orbit.^[4] Mars flyby rendezvous was evaluated at NASA's Manned Spaceflight Center in the 1960s.^[4]

Another variation is that the ascent stage comes from one of the Mars moons, in the case of an expedition to Phobos or Deimos.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• List of manned mars mission plans in the 20th century
• Space rendezvous

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Page 8-9 in Chapter 2 of David S. F. Portree's Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950 - 2000, NASA Monographs in Aerospace History Series, Number 21, February 2001. Available as NASA SP-2001-4521.
2. ^ Mars Sample Return: The Medium-Lift Approach, Morris Jones, Sydney - July 1, 2000.
3. ^ Mars Orbit Rendezvous Strategy for the Mars 2003/2005 Sample Return Mission, DAmario, Louis A.; Bollman, Willard E.; Lee, Wayne J.; Roncoli, Ralph B.; Smith, John C., Technical Report, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 1999-02, accessed 2010-09-16.
4. ^ ^{a b} Page 15-16 in Chapter 3 of David S. F. Portree's Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950 - 2000, NASA Monographs in Aerospace History Series, Number 21, February 2001. Available as NASA SP-2001-4521.

External links

• Mars Orbit Rendezvous Strategy for the Mars 2003/2005 Sample Return Mission (The Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System)