Mars Launch-Window Survey, 2026–2031

Find the next three Mars windows from real ephemerides, then design a launch period.

Mission design starts with one question: when can we go? In this assignment you build the tool that answers it — real planetary ephemerides, Izzo's Lambert solver and a porkchop search — validate it on Perseverance, and then use it on the future: the 2026, 2028 and 2031 Mars opportunities. You finish by designing a launch period for 2028 against a launcher's C₃ limit and a launch site's DLA limit, which is the document a launch-services contract is written around.

Interplanetary Lambert problemPorkchop searchType I / Type II transfersSynodic periodLaunch-period design

Milestones

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Before you trust a tool on a future window, make it reproduce a past one. • helio_states(body, dates) returns heliocentric equatorial positions and velocities from astropy's built-in ephemeris. • lambert(r1, r2, tof, mu) is Izzo's solver from Lesson 9-3; take the zero-revolution solution [0]. • Write transfer(dep, arr): v∞ at departure = v1 − v_Earth, C₃ = |v∞|², DLA = asin(v∞z/|v∞|), arrival v∞ = |v2 − v_Mars|, Type I if (r_E × r_M)_z ≥ 0. • Mars 2020 launched 30 July 2020 and landed 18 February 2021.

numpyscipyastropy

C₃ for Mars 2020

Launch asymptote declination