Uranus Orbiter, The other proposed ice-giant mission |
Uranus Orbiter, The other proposed ice-giant mission |
Nov 11 2005, 05:13 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 509 Joined: 2-July 05 From: Calgary, Alberta Member No.: 426 |
Since the Neptune Orbiter thread has started to veer into talking about a Uranus orbiter as well, it seemed like a good idea to start a topic for Uranus.
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Sep 24 2007, 12:51 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 903 Joined: 30-January 05 Member No.: 162 |
The Galileo style tour of the Uranian system is quite exciting. With the 'scale' being smaller, the mission generates very close encounters of Ariel, Miranda, Titania and Oberon in fairly a fairly short time interval.
Additionally, with even Oberon being less than (IIRC) 600,000 miles out from Uranus, you are having virtually continuous (well, not quite) reasonably close encounters with non-targeted moons on each orbit. With the (IMO) near certainty of ongoing geological process on Ariel, and a good chance perhaps for Titania, too, a Uranus orbiter is looking like a pretty useful mission. Our understanding of these smaller bodies grows synergistically with each one we study. To learn more about the 'Enceladus phenomena', study Ariel. And possibily, to learn more about Cassini Regio, study Umbriel. A Uranus orbiter mission is a lot of bang for the buck. |
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Sep 24 2007, 01:52 PM
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
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Sep 24 2007, 05:34 PM
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#4
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 24 Joined: 4-September 07 Member No.: 3653 |
That may be true - to be honest, it would take a Uranus orbiter to find out. One thing that IS for sure, is that while it may be a lot of bang per buck...it'll also be a lot of buck. It is very much not for sure that a Uranian tour spacecraft would be a lot of buck. I'd guess it could be done for ~ $1.5 Billion (or $75 mill a year for 20 years). And a big chunk of that could be saved if we could figure out how do do spacecraft hibernation better (i.e. improve upon New Horizon's hibernation). Sure that's more than a new frontiers mission, but it's about half a flagship mission cost. Rough outline for a cheap mission: something New Horizon's like in the suite of instrument and in the mass of instruments, launch on a falcon 9, interplanetary trajectory like Venus-Earth-Earth-Jupiter, 12 year (mostly-hibernating) cruise, 1 year inclined tour with Titania flybys, 1 year equatorial tour with flybys of all of the moons. That's a 14 year mission, which is very much doable with current technology. A Neptune mission on the other hand, would be a lot of buck since the interplanetary cruise times are beyond current technology unless we find a way to capture at Neptune from a high-energy transfer, which is also beyond current technology. Sure there are lots of technologies that could be developed... but that costs $$$. |
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