By Giusy Falcone Dec 2021 https://gfalcon2.web.illinois.edu
With a 6 m/s increase in the Delta-V budget, the deep reinforcement learning approach shortened the #aerobraking time by 68.3% π. The DRL algorithm does not encounter any thermal violations over 40 episodes compared to the 2.8 average thermal violations experienced by the state-of-the-art heuristic https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2022-2497
Content Warning
From Earth to #Mars lasts about 200 days. To safely go from those speeds down to zero in that short amount of time requires βslamming on the brakesβ. Successful #aerobraking depends upon precise navigation, knowledge of weather, and a solid understanding of the forces the craft can withstand. https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-science/programs/mars-exploration/mission-timeline