Subscribe to download
Mars Comp 1: 4hemispheres: El Sombrero

This is my official submission to the Mars unpowered landing contest.


INSTRUCTIONS

LIFTOFF -

1. After Liftoff at 20km or so, begin your turn to the orbital heading in the direction of Mars.

2. After reaching orbit and around 100-150km, try to aim just above the horizon by about 5 or 10 degrees (each grid square appears to be that increment), then jettison boosters when mostly horizontal.

3. Jettison 2nd stage and circularize. After you've started circularizing into orbit, you will have already passed your periapsis, so cut the engines at a very low orbit to preserve Delta V. You will still be in an elliptical orbit to escape Earth in the right trajectory before reaching the periapsis again.

4. Set up a maneuver for your escape Earth burn, And proceed carefully to interplanetary space.

MARS-

5. At this point, you should only have your last 2 stages, The powered stage and the unpowered stage.

6. Orient the ship towards "radial in" and when you reach Mars orbit immediately adjust your approach so that you lower your periapsis to 40 to 50 kilometers above the surface.

7. Once you've captured. your periapsis. Orient to "retrograde". This must happen by the time you have reached 100 kilometers so your heat shield is facing the right way. .

8. As you descend into the atmosphere. fire your thrusters to burn down the remaining fuel and slow yourself down, which will also help buffer the heat shield.

9. During reentry, try to burn off your fuel to slow down enough for heating to stop, then deploy parachutes. They are adjusted to Mars thinner atmosphere so they will begin deploying early to slow you down, and will fully inflate at 5000 m and 2300 m, respectively.

10. Decouple and jettison the head shield once you are moving slow enough for it to fall away. Descend to the surface.