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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#1
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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 22 2007, 11:45 AM
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#2
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 23 Joined: 6-June 06 From: Stockholm, Sweden Member No.: 821 |
What about building two identical probes and launching one to Uranus and the second to Neptune? It will certainly lower the cost of the missions. And if we launch them at appropriate times, we can have the same team working on both projects - first on Uranus Orbiter and later on Neptune Orbiter.
-------------------- --Atanas
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Sep 24 2007, 10:45 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 105 Joined: 27-August 05 Member No.: 479 |
What about building two identical probes and launching one to Uranus and the second to Neptune? It will certainly lower the cost of the missions. And if we launch them at appropriate times, we can have the same team working on both projects - first on Uranus Orbiter and later on Neptune Orbiter. Spirit, I remember A while back NASA had idea much like yours , it was called Mariner Mark 2 I believe. You could goggle this.I think it is a great idea perhaps now in our era a massed produced space craft modeled after the Jupiter and Saturn orbiters could be built minus the instruments and electronics and stored(off the shelf)then as opportunities came up do to orbital mechanics science instruments specific to that mission would be added to the off the shelf spacecraft body and launched. Questions I would have would be assuming we are using the Galileo design and we where building two space craft for Uranus Neptune and a re flight to Saturn and Jupiter IE 8 space craft with one atmospheric probe each. what would a JPL cost engineer cost these out as ? Issues.................. (1) can a modular mass produce space craft design accept somewhat different scientific instrument suite for each outer planet? (2) would a mass produced set off atmospheric probes work at each outer planet? each would need a somewhat different reentry cone? (3) Could the Deep space network handle a outer planet mission launched every year or every two years? mariner mark 2 according to Wiki |
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Sep 25 2007, 12:12 AM
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#4
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 24 Joined: 4-September 07 Member No.: 3653 |
Questions I would have would be assuming we are using the Galileo design and we where building two space craft for Uranus Neptune and a re flight to Saturn and Jupiter IE 8 space craft with one atmospheric probe each. what would a JPL cost engineer cost these out as ? A good way to estimate costs of doing multiple identical spacecraft (based off of MER experience, I think) is that if you build the spacecraft at the same time and they really are identical.... each spacecraft after the first costs 50% of the first. If anything is different or if you have time between when you build the spacecraft almost all of the savings is lost. This is because almost all of the cost of spacecraft is in the brain-power used to build them. If you change something you have to think about all of the effects of the change and that often is as much work as designing from scratch. And if you have a gap in time between doing the designs, you probably need to get new people... so you have to pay full price. As far as how much a mission costs... check out this link: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/TitanEnceladu...onDollarBox.pdf This is the billion-dollar box study of what could be done at Titan or Enceladus for a billion dollars. (answer: not much) The main problem is that a new Saturn mission has to do something Cassini didn't (and Jupiter missions have to beat Galileo). For Uranus and Neptune you have to beat Voyager. Thinking that way, and looking at the cost of the mission ideas in the above study, I think a Uranus or Neptune mission would cost $1 billion at least. An that would be a very minimal mission. But I think, for $2-$3 billion you could do something amazing that would be worth more scientifically than splitting that same number across 2-3 new frontiers missions. (Just look at all we got from one Cassini Iapetus flyby... that's a new frontiers-class science return from one flyby). I think NASA needs to start thinking of outer planet exploration as a program that costs X dollars a year and then plan multiple flagships in that budget to overlap. Start with a Europa or Titan mission and then after it ramps up (maybe 5 years down the road), then start studying the next one. The flight times to the outer planets are so long that you can easily stagger the arrival times. |
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