**3. Concept vehicle for Mars entry, descent, and landing**

To date, lifting body architectures have not been employed yet for Mars EDL missions. Therefore, only *a-priori* knowledge based on Earth re-entry vehicles can be assumed. In this work, a conceptual lifting body configuration, suitable for a manned entry mission starting from a Mars low orbit is considered [8, 9]. The vehicle is derived from a design procedure supported by a multidisciplinary optimization (MDO) analysis. By accounting in the design loop several sub-disciplines, a blended wing body with a double-delta planform configuration with low wing loading, and capable to perform a long gliding trajectory (i.e., *γ* ≪ 1° ) can be derived (**Figure 1**) [9, 10].

The vehicle is designed to exploit a specific guidance law modulating the AoA versus Mach number in order to attain a favorable value of convective heat flux profile and promote the cooling down of the passive TPS exclusively by thermal radiation.

Reference geometric parameters of vehicle are shown in **Table 1**.

**Figure 1.** *Entry vehicle representation.*

