Dual Capsule planetary missions( Red Dragon 1.5)

                Dual Capsule  planetary missions  ( Red Dragon 1.5)

One Dragon trunk two Dragon capsules docked together the leading capsules heat shield provides aerobraking

RED DRAGON-MSL HYBRID LANDING ARCHITECTURE FOR 2018 (4216 ) This paper gives the weight of the Dragon rider capsule, hard to find information.

Key points from the Dragon-MSL hybrid paper;

7200-kg entry mass( did this author  add or subtract the trunk?)

Two Dragons docked together  should weigh twice this( our thoughts)

a direct entry into the atmosphere at 6.0 km/s

The Dual capsule Dragon flight system allows aerobraking, aerocapture followed by subsequent EDL for  one or both Dragons some days later.

This system allows for the trunk and retracted solar arrays  to survive aerobraking and to allow for the mass production of  Mars Exploration Rovers (MER’s) We save the weight of MER cruise stage, Backshell/heat shield

We place three externally mounted MER’s to the Dragon that are released as weights during EDL , this means that three MER’s have landed close to one another a problem wich  we will discuss shortly. On board the Dragon are two more MER’s! and a ISRU machine to allow the MER’s to be relocated further  from  the initial landing site by the Dragon hopping  to move its MER brood.

transform the mars lander network to a rover