Astronautics and Space Exploration Chapter 1: Objective of space missions 1. Name some of the challenges of space missions: a. Physical?

b. Habitability c. Psychogical d. Interpersonal 2. What are some of the behaviour and performance requirements of a space mission? 3. What qualities are in a person and for astronaut what are the skills that can be trained and what are the skills that cant be changed in a person? 4. What is the meaning of habitability? 5. What and where is the habitable zone in the solar system? 6. How can the moon be used in the future? 7. What are the si topics of exploration of the moon? 8. Orion: why? 9. What is NASAs goal for the return to moon mission? 10. Strategy for science driven exploration: a. Guiding principles b. Desired outcomes? c. Approach? 11. What are the characteristics of the vision of the exploring deep space 12. Why explore deep space? 13. What are Libration points? 14. Why would you choose any of the libration points in a mission? 15. What is the possible role of the ISS? 16. What are the limitations of flying to the moon? 17. Draw the typical path that you would take to go to the moon and return? a. Why does the vehicle first orbit in LEO and then go to the moon? What is the reason for that? 18. How could the moon be used as an outpost? 19. Why would we want to go to NEO? 20. Discuss a mission to NEO in terms of the delta-V required and also explain with the help of a diagram. 21. What is ITV? And explain some mission scenario. 22. Describe the typical structure for a interplanetary mission. 23. Why would we want to go to mars? And what would the exploration architecture be like? 24. What are the building blocks of capability development for missions to near earth objects or mars or asteroids or deep space? 25. What are some of the developments and processes that we have to undertake to go to mars?

Chapter 2: Historic missions 1. 2. 3. 4. Describe some of the pre-Apollo programs and also some of its characteristics. What were the trajectory options and mission modes for Apollo? Explain the typical Apollo mission profile with the help of a diagram. What were the trajectory options for the Apollo mission and discuss the advantages and disadvantages for both. a. Explain it in terms of the surface accessibility. Discuss the Launch window for the Apollo mission and also discuss some of the limitations of the transfer windows. Lunar ascent and descent windows: What is the freuquency of returning to earth from the moon and what factors determine the frequency. What were some of the more constraints of going to the mooon: a. Lunar landing? b. Earth landing? What were some of the issues with mapping and landing site selection? a. Surface conditions? b. Surveyor spacecrafts? c. Lunar orbiter? Describe the deorbit burn for the lunar landing. Describe the Powered Descent. Describe how hazard avoidance and abort is done. With the help of a diagram explain the ascent trajectories. Vehicles of the Apollo program: a. What were the vehicles that were used? b. Descirbe some of the technical details of these machines. c. If possible give a rough outline of the launch sequence of the Saturn V d. What did the Apollo Spacecraft consist of? e. Describe the Command module. i. Earth landing system ii. Launch escape system f. Describe the service module. g. LEM: i. What is the full form? ii. Discuss some of the technical specifications of this vehicle. iii. What were some of the subsystems of the LEM? What were the results of the Apollo missions? a. Political? b. Technological? c. Science? d. Economical? e. Philosophical? The Apollo missions: a. Apollo 1:

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i. Astronauts? ii. Missions? Apollo 4: i. Astronauts? ii. Mission? Apollo 5: i. Astronauts? ii. Mission? Apollo 6: i. Mission? ii. Results? Apollo 7: i. Astronauts ii. Mission Apollo 8; i. Astronauts ii. Mission Apollo 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 i. Astronauts ii. Mission

Chapter 3: Fundamentals of orbital mechanics 1. What are the assumptions in the two body-problem? 2. What are the constants of the two body problem? a. In terms of energy b. Angular momentum 3. What is the trajectory equation? 4. Describe all the conic sections with the help of the trajectory equation.\ 5. Describe the geocentric coordinate system. 6. What are the 2D keplerian elements? a. What are the orbital elements in the 2D plane? 7. Describe the 2D keplerian elements with the help of a diagram. 8. 3D keplerian elements: a. What are they and how are they determined? 9. Describe and also provide the value for : a. Circular velocity. b. Escape velocity c. Hyperbolic excess velocity 10. Describe how and where can orbital maneuvers be done withing an orbital plane? 11. Describe the Hohmann transfer. a. Transfer orbit? 12. How can orbital plane changes be done? a. Most efficient maneuver? Where? 13. Do example problems from slide 169-176.

Chapter 4: Interplanetary Trajectories. 1. What are the 6 keplerian elements? and also explain with the help of a diagram. 2. What is the inertial coordinate system? 3. How can an escape take place? a. What is the shape of the resulting trajectory? 4. Which equation allows you to calculate the escape velocity? a. What is this equation? b. What is the orbital velocity at 400km (LEO)? c. What is the delta-V required to escape the earths atmosphere once you are already at the LEO? 5. Once a body has left the gravitations well of the earth where is it with respect to the gravitational well of the sun? a. And what path is it going to follow relative to the earth? b. What is its velocity relative to the earth? 6. What is the sphere of influence? 7. What are the steps during the flight to the moon? 8. What is the phasing problem? 9. What kind of trajectory is required for an earth departure? 10. What would allow anytime earth departures? 11. Why is the anytime transfer not possible anymore? 12. What is the velocity of the moon? 13. When it comes to plane changes what should you avoid? 14. What does the surface access depend on? 15. What are the alternative ways to access the moon? 16. Going to mars 17. What is the situation of going to a another planet split into? 18. Describe the transfer problem between two planets. 19. Give an equation for the transfer time between two planets. 20. Describe Lamberts Problem. 21. Describe a prok chop plot. What are the characteristics of the pork chop plots. 22. What determines the plane of the transfer orbit? 23. How often do opportunities arise to go to another planet? Give some examples. 24. How should the transfer windows be designed? 25. What are the two possible ways of leaving a planet? a. Describe with the use of numbers. 26. What are the additional considerations that have to be made when leaving a planet? 27. What are the other options that should be considered?

Chapter 5: Missions to Near-Earth Objects 1. Define the following celestial bodies: a. Comets b. Asteroids c. Meteoroids d. Meteors e. Meteorites 2. Describe the asteroid distribution. 3. Explain the location of the asteroid belt.

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Explain the diagram above. What are the different groups of Near Earth Asteroids? Exaplain with the use of a diagram. What are the potential hazardous asteroids and what is scale to measure this? What is the Torino Scale? What is the connection between the asterois size and the size and effect of its impact on earth? What is the Yarkovsky effect? What are some of the asteroid properties? How are the asteroids classified? How is the size of an asteroid determined? How does size effect the shape of an asteroid? Describe the variations in rotation and spin state of asteroids. What is the YORP effect? Describe the internal structure of an asteroid. What are the different set ups of multiple asteroid systems? What are the reasons to go to NEA?

21. What are some of the determining factors that help us choose as to which NEA we should visit? 22. What are some of the assumptions for a mission to NEA? 23. What are some of the deep space issues that are hampering such missions? a. What is the main issue? 24. Explain the concept of deep space radiation and also the problems it poses to future missions. 25. What are some of the specifications of the ITV?

Chapter 5: Systems engineering for Transfer Vehicles 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. What is a system? Describe the concept of system level. What is the goal of a system? How is a system defined? What are some of the sections of a space system? How are some of the sections of the space system interconnected? What are the different phases in a mission planning and construction? a. Describe what happens in each stage of this process. b. Which sections are paperwork and which sections are hardware? c. With the help of a graph explain the cost of the mission design and also at the same time describe the importance of the early phases. What is Technology Readiness Levels? a. Explain some of the levels? Explain the concept of concurrent engineering. What is the iteration method? What is the constraint problem as far as the mission is concerned? What are the steps in a design phase? And also explain the design flow. What are the steps in a conceptual design of the transfer vehicle? a. Describe what happens during each stage and also provide examples. What is the Sheas Law?

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Chapter 6: Launch and Space Transportation systems 1. What is the Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation? 2. Read through the different rockets that were used and also read the summary questions Chapter 7: Exploration architectures and Technical Approach. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. What is a vision? What are some of the recent space visions? What are goals and objectives? What are some of the common goals for human lunar exploration? What is exploration architecture? What is the exploration roadmap? What is the interrelationship between: a. Potential destination b. Mission architecture? c. And technology building block? What is the difference between mission design and architecture design? Discuss the exploration architecture hierarchy What are some of the objectives of an architecture? What are some of the issues? What are some of the rules that are used in Architecture design? What are critical functions and what are supporting functions? And give a few examples. What are key drivers? What is high level requirements Discuss the concept of trading options. What is trade space and trade tree? What are some steps that should be taken when designing the architecture? What is the difference between Function and module approach? What are some of the preparatory activities that can be conducted to test the system? What are the fundamental design considerations for the issue of transportation. Name of the launch vehicles and also some of their technical details. What are the elements of in-space transportation? Describe some of the crew transportation mechanisms? What is the staging problem? And also discuss the fundamental design considerations. What are the constraints on the lunar location properties? Discuss the staging locations and also the infrastructure. Discuss some of the orbital infrastructure. What is the outpost problem? What are some of the determining factors of lunar site selection? What does an exploration architecture describe? Define: a. Flight manifest b. Deployment consistency What is the phased approach of the ISECG/IAWG? How are campaigns and architectures evaluated?

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

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Chapter 8: Life Support Systems for Space Exploration 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. What are the main tasks of the ECLSS? What are the three main cycles on earth? What is the key to a self sustaining system? Explain with the help of a diagram. Why is self sustaining systems important for future spaceflight? Why was it not important for spaceflights in the past? What are some of the future human space flight missions? Compare the cost of Lunar base to the Mars Mission. What are the tasks and requirements of the ECLSS? What are some of the strategies for Sustainable systems? What are the three classifications for ECLSS? Describe the concept of atmospheric management. How can physico-chemical Oxygen recovery take place? What is a EDC? What is the Sabatier Reactor? Water electrlysis? Explain the concept of Regenerative Solid Oxide Fuel Cell. What is Biological Atmosphere Regeneration? Photosynthesis? Discuss Food management. What are the plant requirements? And the selection criteria? Describe the salad machine. What are the algae requirements and the selection criteria? What are photobioreactors? How can natural lighting be achieved? Water management? What is Vapor Phase Catalytic Ammonia Removal? Discuss Hybrid Water treatment. What are the tasks of waste management? Discuss the concept of incineration. Discuss the concept of composting. What are the issues with Crew safety? What are the selection criteria to make the environment more safe for the crews?