OPAG Reports, Formal proposals/evaluations of future outer SS missions |
OPAG Reports, Formal proposals/evaluations of future outer SS missions |
Nov 9 2007, 08:28 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/announcements.html
That's one little URL with a lifetime's worth of reading material. Three detailed studies are available in PDF format. The missing body is Titan, which will be the subject of a forthcoming report. The three focus missions are: Europa Explorer: Fairly detailed description of a mission that is pretty much what Europa Orbiter would have been. Jupiter System Observer: Basically, Galileo 2 (without the antenna mishap!). The craft would start with a 3-year tour of all the Galileans, then spend 1 year in an elliptical Ganymede orbit, then the rest of the mission in a tight, polar Ganymede orbit (like MGS at Mars). That would map the heck out of Ganymede, but also be close enough to the rest of the system to make long-range observations for years. Note that Ganymede would thereby provide a lot of radiation shielding. Enceladus: where three profiles are examined in depth: Enceladus Orbiter only; Enceladus Orbiter with soft lander; Saturn orbiter with Enceladus soft lander. There's more to chew on here than I have had (or may ever have) time for, but I'll throw in my two cents' worth: Seems like a Europa-only mission would only benefit from coming after a JSO. EE would explore Europa much better than JSO would; why even have JSO observations at Europa if EE came first? In many ways, these two missions are competitive. EE would have the big payoff, but JSO seems like basic recon that would prime EE, especially giving specs on radar performance. But if we waited til JSO was 4 years into its mission before completing design of EE, then put EE sometime mid-century. If an Enceladus mission included a Saturn orbiter, then maybe the same orbiter could provide data relay for separate Titan elements. However, a lot of the Enceladus science goals would require an Enceladus orbiter, so I don't think a Saturn orbiter for Enceladus/Titan will win out. Note that Enceladus orbital velocity is low enough that the craft could manage to take lots of hits from ice pellets and survive. Put a bulletproof vest on the craft and let it soar through the plumes endlessly. |
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Nov 23 2007, 07:37 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
My brain's bouncing off a statement made a couple pages back, rattling off categorizations of moon-designated missions one by one and came up with:
Io's a volcanologist's dream Europa's a glaciologist/oceanologist's dream. Ganymede's a glaciologist/geologist's dream Callisto's a mortician's dream. <evil grin... should't be so hard on poor old Callisto> |
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Nov 23 2007, 01:42 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 611 Joined: 23-February 07 From: Occasionally in Columbia, MD Member No.: 1764 |
My brain's bouncing off a statement made a couple pages back, rattling off categorizations of moon-designated missions one by one and came up with: Io's a volcanologist's dream Europa's a glaciologist/oceanologist's dream. Ganymede's a glaciologist/geologist's dream Callisto's a mortician's dream. And Titan has all of the above*.... plus it is an organic chemist's dream, and a meteorologist's dream, etc. etc...... Plus you can actually put down instruments (thanks to atmosphere for aerocapture, and entry/descent) to let you do in-situ chemistry, seismology, soil mechanics, and lots of other good science you simply cant do affordably at these other places. You can OBSERVE all these Jovian bodies at varying degrees of detail. You can actually EXPLORE Titan... *ok - jury is still out on present-day cryovolcanism. Bet it's there tho.. As for the question about mission library, I don't think so (isolated design cases get published in papers etc., but no library as such - since there are competed mission lines like Discovery, NF etc., it would make little sense to provide data for your competition...) But it's a pretty straightforward situation - you get Jupiter gravity assists to Saturn every 15 years or something (repeat the alignment, so one Jupiter period is 10 years, right, but in that time Saturn goes around 1/3 orbit, so add another 1/3 of 10 to let Jupiter catch up, but now Saturn has gone aroundanother tenth, so add another tenth of a Jupiter period).. transcendental or something. The window closes down circa 2015. There are pretty much always inner planet opportunities, though. |
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Nov 23 2007, 03:25 PM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
As for the question about mission library, I don't think so (isolated design cases get published in papers etc., but no library as such - since there are competed mission lines like Discovery, NF etc., it would make little sense to provide data for your competition...) ...that kind of sucks. As an outsider, I was thinking of overall outer planet programmatic integration (even between national agencies), but I see your point. Of course, <evil grin>, I wonder what Alan might think about this idea...a mission library might well foster even more productive proposal competition. (I humbly await my execution for that last...done already fired up a stogie, waiting on the word to put on the blindfold...) -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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