Human Crewed Interplanetary Transport Architecture for a Roundtrip Exploration of Mars and Ceres: Research Study

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-4195.vid Human-crewed exploration beyond the Earth and the Mars has been driving the attention of the next generation space explorers to encounter Ceres and Vesta as part of Crewed exploration into various interplanetary destinations and Deep Space Exploration Initiative. The Vesta and Ceres are primary targeted interplanetary exploration destinations among Titan and Europa where these bodies tend to have potential resources and geological record for existence of earlier life in our solar system. Scientifically, it is significant to approach Ceres with the advanced technology which is matured enough to enable crews to transit at an optimal speed with secure environment. To date, no space agencies have outlined a mission architecture to send humans to Ceres due to mission complexity, risk, and cost. Therefore, considering the significance of scientific exploration of Ceres, we have proposed a conceptual human-crewed architecture called HUCITAR (Human Crewed Interplanetary Transport Architecture), a single leg mission to explore Mars and Ceres in a single attempt. The architecture accompanies six astronauts and allows them to explore Ceres with less than 25 days of surface stay mission, and the Mars with more than 365 days. In this paper, we overview our architectural plan, scientific intention to explore Ceres, potential challenges, considered technologies, mission phases, and proposed trajectories along with mission durations.