Establishing a Mars Base Camp on Phobos to Enable Future Crewed Mars Surface Missions

Phobos, the innermost of Mars' moons, is closer to its host planet than any other moon in the solar system and thus would serve as an excellent observation and teleoperation base for extensive exploration of the surface of Mars. Establishing an outpost on Phobos before human surface missions provides a wealth of advantages. At Phobos the crew would explore its surface, gather samples, and teleoperate, in real time, Mars surface assets including rovers, helicopters, and balloons, in addition to establishing a communication relay system far superior to the current low altitude relay orbiters. In the mission scenario, a first manned mission to the vicinity of Mars is described: a landing on this, Mars largest moon. A significant reduction in launch mass can be achieved by directing the initial landing mission to Phobos rather than Mars. Phobos’ low gravity level would allow the Mars transfer vehicle (MTV) to enter a parallel orbit to Phobos and rendezvous with it. The MTV consists of propulsion stages, a long duration crew habitat and a small, dedicated Earth Reentry Capsule. Based out of an Earth-Moon L2 staging node, a Trans-Mars injection stage is used to inject the MTV into a Mars transfer trajectory. After a 274-day transfer, the MTV propulsively captures into an elliptical Mars parting orbit, with its periapsis equal to Phobos altitude; an apoapsis burn will put the craft into Phobos orbit. The MTV will then rendezvous with Phobos; once anchored, the crew will carry out their 470-day exploration mission. Later, the MTV’s Trans-Earth Injection stage will boost the vehicle into a 270-day return trajectory. A day before Earth arrival the crew will board the ERC for Earth reentry. The total mission time is 1013-days.