Author's personal copy Acta Astronautica 64 (2009) 589 – 601 www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro Reconfigurability in planetary surface vehicles Afreen Siddiqi * , 1 , Olivier L. de Weck * , 2 Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Received 28 May 2007; accepted 13 October 2008 Available online 30 November 2008 Abstract Traditionally, space systems have been built for fixed requirements and optimized for highest performance. Future systems for human exploration of Moon and Mars, however, require focus on new architectural strategies geared towards increased affordability and survivability in addition to performance. Reconfigurability is a new paradigm in system design that enhances these qualities. Reconfigurable systems can attain different states with new or modified capabilities, as required with changing needs, over time. Such systems can lower mission costs through mass savings by efficient use of a fixed set of hardware for multiple functions. Their survivability is improved through their ability to reconfigure into different states so that some level of over-all functionality is retained. This study, with a focus on planetary surface vehicles, presents a methodology for determining optimal designs of reconfigurable systems. It also proposes metrics for assessing the impact of reconfigurability. It is found that for the specific scenario considered, the mass utilization efficiency in a fleet of reconfigurable vehicles is increased by 27% while the survivability can be increased by a factor of 3. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Reconfigurability; System architecture; Planetary surface vehicles; Rovers 1. Introduction In a space exploration program that is geared to- wards human exploration of Moon and Mars, a fun- damental and arguably perhaps the most important component will be the surface exploration system. Planetary surface vehicles (PSVs) will play a crucial * Corresponding authors. Tel.: +1 512 388 7840; fax: +1 617 258 0863. E-mail addresses: siddiqi@mit.edu (A. Siddiqi), deweck@mit.edu (O.L. de Weck). 1 Post-Doctoral Research Associate. 2 Associate Professor of Aeronautics Astronautics and Engineering Systems 33-410, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 0094-5765/$ - see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2008.10.010 role in meeting many mission objectives by extending the radius of exploration. It can be expected that future human missions to Moon and Mars will employ surface vehicles as one of the key elements for exploration [1]. Over the course of the last few decades, several types of vehicle concepts have been proposed [2–5]. The dif- ferent types of vehicles identified for carrying out the necessary tasks include survey vehicles, science vehi- cles, site preparation vehicles (SPV), transport and as- sembly vehicles, astronaut transport vehicles (ATV), service and maintenance vehicles, mining vehicles, etc. [5]. Keeping in view the large variety of vehicle require- ments, a few different types of vehicles have been pro- posed that combine the requirements of several types of tasks and leverage modularity and commonality in their proposed designs [5,6].