Review and prospect of guidance and control for Mars atmospheric entry

The Mars atmospheric entry phase plays a vital role in the whole Mars exploration mission-cycle. It largely determines the success of the entire Mars mission. In order to achieve a pin-point Mars landing, advanced entry guidance and control is essential. This paper systematically summarizes the past development and current state-of-art of Mars entry guidance and control technologies. More specifically, the Mars entry process and main technical challenges are first introduced. Second, the guidance and control technologies adopted in the past successful Mars landing mission are reviewed in detail. Next, current state-of-art and recent developments of guidance and control for Mars atmospheric entry are summarized at length. The advantages and disadvantages of the various existing methods are analyzed. Lastly, supposing future Mars pin-point landing missions as the potential project application goals, a more comprehensive outlook and prospect for the next-generation Mars entry guidance and control technologies are described.