Author(s) :

Abhishek Desai.

Volume/Issue :

Abstract :

Colonizing Mars is considered an important objective for long-term human exploration, scientific discovery, and technological advancement. However, crewed missions to Mars using chemical propulsion take around 7-10 months at a minimum, posing significant challenges for crew health and mission reliability. One promising solution to reduce this travel time and still maintain feasibility is by employing Nuclear Thermal Propulsion, or NTP. This study simulates an Earth-Mars transfer, using circular and coplanar orbital mechanics as well as patched-conic and two-body approximations, to evaluate the effectiveness of NTP in reducing travel times to Mars. These results show that NTP can feasibly reduce travel times to 70-90 days during the optimal launch window while achieving a hyperbolic excess velocity, or V-infinity of 10 km/s. This result considers the trajectory and launch window of such a mission, the propellant mass fractions of the rocket, travel time, and reserve propellant. These findings indicate that NTP represents a technically realistic and advantageous option for future crewed missions to Mars, and eventually, the rest of the Solar System. NTP offers a significant reduction in transit time when compared to chemical propulsion but remains consistent with current reactor technology and demonstrated technological advancements.