Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 274-283). / by James D. Soldi, Jr. / M.S.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-230). / The future of Mars exploration is challenging from multiple points of view. To enhance their science return, future surface probes will most likely be equipped with complex Sample Preparation And Transfer (SPAT) facilities. Future rovers will need to be able to perform longer traverses and delicate sample acquisition operations. Mars return missions would benefit from a new propulsion system, with better fuel and travel time efficiencies than chemical and electric propulsions, respectively. A model was developed that optimizes SPAT facilities in terms of productivity and system mass. The SPAT model especially investigates two trade-offs: shared versus specific preparation, and warm versus cold redundancy for SPAT elements. A Mars Surface Exploration (MSE) framework was created to help designers perform preliminary studies on rover missions. MSE applies multidisciplinary design optimization techniques for the analysis of design trade-offs relevant to the rover design community. The Propellant Production In Mars Orbit (PPIMO) is presented as a promising solution for performing return travels to Mars. PPIMO uses the concept of regenerative aerobraking to produce fuel in-situ. The SPAT model shows that warm redundancy improves productivity by both reducing risk and removing sample throughput bottlenecks. A method is presented for determining the economy of scale the shared preparation architecture must exhibit for it to be competitive in comparison to the distributed architecture. MSE is used to budget the future development costs of rover autonomy, in addition to assessing: the benefits of oversized suspensions, the practicality of solar versus nuclear power for future missions, and the advantages of multi-rover missions. When compared / (cont.) to chemical and electric propulsions, PPIMO propulsion shows a better performance in terms of transportation ratio for payloads larger than 1000 kilograms. / by Julien-Alexandre Lamamy. / S.M.

Thesis (Sc. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1972. / Part of the pages are numbered as leaves. / Includes bibliographical references. / Sc.D.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1971. / Bibliography: p. 105. / M.S.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-121). / by John Marc Shewchun. / M.S.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 93-97). / The goal of visual inertial odometry (VIO) is to estimate a moving vehicle's trajectory using inertial measurements and observations, obtained by a camera, of naturally occurring point features. One existing VIO estimation algorithm for use with a monocular system, is the multi-state constraint Kalman filter (MSCKF), proposed by Mourikis and Li [34, 29]. The way the MSCKF uses feature measurements drastically improves its performance, in terms of consistency, observability, computational complexity and accuracy, compared to other VIO algorithms [29]. For this reason, the MSCKF is chosen as the basis for the estimation algorithm presented in this thesis. A VIO estimation algorithm for a system consisting of an IMU, a monocular camera and a depth sensor is presented in this thesis. The addition of the depth sensor to the monocular camera system produces three-dimensional feature locations rather than two-dimensional locations. Therefore, the MSCKF algorithm is extended to use the extra information. This is accomplished using a model proposed by Dryanovski et al. that estimates the 3D location and uncertainty of each feature observation by approximating it as a multivariate Gaussian distribution [11]. The extended MSCKF algorithm is presented and its performance is compared to the original MSCKF algorithm using real-world data obtained by flying a custom-built quadrotor in an indoor office environment. / by Marissa N. Galfond. / S.M.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-121). / by Bethany J. Foch. / M.S.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [153]-157). / by Cary Craig Gumbert. / M.S.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-206). / by T. Tupper Hyde. / Ph.D.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, leaves 342-350). / by Tracy J. Vogler. / M.S.