Gateway Deimos

Gepubliceerd op 5 oktober 2025 om 16:10

Gateway Deimos; A Stepping Stone for Mars.

Deimos and Phobos are the two Martian moons and are mentioned as a possible gateway as part of the manned exploration of Mars (Canales, et al., 2021). Using one of the Martian moons as gateway for a manned Mars mission is often overseen. In most cases when scientist and developers talk about Mars missions a direct landing on Mars is often preferred.

Deimos is the smallest of the two Martian moons. The two moons are different in many ways. The two moons are made from different materials and it’s suggested they also have a different origin and were formed by different processes. Phobos looks very rough and heavily cratered where Deimos has a very smooth surface (Murchie, et al., 2009). But Phobos and Deimos also have other different characteristics. Phobos circles less than 10.000 km above the Martian surface taking 7 hours and 39 minutes to circle Mars and has a surface gravity of 0.0006 G's. Deimos circles about 23.450 km above the Martian surface taking 30 hours and 19 minutes to circle Mars and has a surface gravity of 0.0003 G's (Drake, et al., 2021).

Deimos (Murchie, et al., 2009).

Using Deimos as a gateway to set foot on Mars will be practical and will reduce cost (Baziotis, 2013). Using Phobos to set foot on Mars will only add costs and increase risk and delay the landing on the surface of Mars (Drake, et al., 2021). Deimos also looks like a preferred option due to its lower orbital velocity (Canales & Brown, 2021).

Literature:

Baziotis, I. P. (2013). THEORICAL OBSERVATIONS OF THE ICE FILLED CRATERS ON MARTIAN MOON DEIMOS. EDITOR-CHEFE, 56.

Canales, D., Gupta, M., Park, B., & Howell, K. (2021, February). Exploration of deimos and phobos leveraging resonant orbits. In 31st AAS/AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting, Charlotte, North Carolina (Vol. 8).

Drake, B. G., Rucker, M. A., & Cianciolo, A. D. (2021, March). Strategic Implications of Phobos as a Staging Point for Mars Surface Missions. In 2021 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

Murchie, S. L., Rivkin, A. S., Veverka, J., Thomas, P. C., & Chabot, N. L. (2009). The Scientific Rationale for Robotic Exploration of Phobos and Deimos. Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University: Laurel, MD, USA.

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