GALCIT Colloquium

In the past twenty years, significant advances have been made in our ability to land scientific payloads on the Mars surface. These advances have come largely from continued evolution and refinement of Viking-era spaceflight technology. Over the past five years, a suite of new EDL technologies has been matured and is rapidly approaching readiness for mission infusion. This presentation will provide an overview of present EDL capabilities and discuss the basis for the present set of EDL technology investments. Looking forward, the benefit of these technology investments will be characterized in terms of the potential future missions that may soon be possible. While Mars exploration will be the focus of this talk, the application of some of these same technologies to science missions to other planetary bodies and a variety of Earth-based applications will also be discussed