MSL "Heat shield woes" |
MSL "Heat shield woes" |
Feb 17 2008, 04:20 PM
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
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Feb 25 2008, 10:56 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 220 Joined: 13-October 05 Member No.: 528 |
One example of design inheritance working well was Rosetta - Mars Express - Venus Express. Venus express was a nearly identical ship to Mar Express, with almost the same collection of instruments. In fact, the ESA leaders put out the request for proposals of what kind of mission could be flown with the Mars Express vehicle, and do it shortly after Mar Express so they could keep the same engineering teams together to do the work. Thus, Venus Express was born. Venus Express flew, the cost for that mission was far, far lower than a comparable NASA planetary mission. However, it was limited to be a near repeat of Mars Express, just flown to a different destination. And then mostly with instruments originally selected for a comet mission 10 years earlier. Typically scientists and engineers identify a mission they want to fly, then design a spacecraft around those requirements. That isn't what happened in this case. Venus Express was not a mission in search of a spacecraft. It was a spacecraft in search of a mission. So there is a real downside on "assembly line" spacecraft . You are very limited in how you move forward. A big part of MSL's problems may have been avoided if they had stuck to a modestly scaled up MER. However, MER was already pushing the size and weight envelope of the airbag delivery system. So you would have been stuck flying another MER, and never get anywhere near to MSL's capabilities. I've expressed a lot of concerns over the MSL cost problems, but I completely understand that in order to move past MER that the engineers had to take some risks. |
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