RECONSTRUCTED FLIGHT PERFORMANCE OF THE MARS SCIENCE LABORATORY GUIDANCE, NAVIGATION, AND CONTROL SYSTEM FOR ENTRY, DESCENT, AND LANDING

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project landed successfully the rover Curiosity in Gale crater in August 5, 2012, after going through a complex and risky Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequence that demonstrated a series of innovations and advances in the area of Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) that resulted in a quantum leap in Mars EDL performance. Among those were the first use at Mars of Entry Guidance to reduce the size of the landing ellipse and the first use of the SkyCrane landing architecture to place a one-ton class rover on the surface of the red planet. Given the first time nature and the associated risks of the new and bold EDL/GN&C design, the project was committed from the start to implement a comprehensive telemetry system for post landing reconstruction of its performance. This paper will give a high level description of the design of the MSL EDL/GN&C system and its performance requirements, the areas of highest uncertainty and risk as understood prior to the arrival to Mars, and its resulting flight performance as reconstructed after landing.