March OPAG presentations available |
March OPAG presentations available |
Apr 8 2008, 09:37 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 706 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 |
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/march_08_meeting/agenda.html
LOTS of interesting material here. Some highlights that interested me: Cassini extended-extended mission (XXM) could last 7 years and end with a series of very close (10,000's km) polar orbits through the D ring gap to enable close in gravity and magnetometer mapping a la Juno Argo proposal would be a New Horizon's class fly by of a Trojan, Saturn, Neptune/Triton, and one or more KBOs for ~$800M (but requires radioactive power source, so would seem to be out of contention for next New Frontiers) Joint Jupiter mission design. NASA supplied Europa orbiter now required to conduct Jupiter system science including up to 4 Io flybys. To fit within the $2.1B cap (with 33% margin), Europa orbit would be reduced to 60 days and several instruments from the Flagship proposal would be dropped including the narrow angle camera) Titan mission. Aerocapture no longer allowed, so craft would enter Saturn orbit first. Potentially allows new Enceladus observations. (Editorial note: Presentation was long on concepts, short on specifics. If this is an indication of the maturity of the mission concept, this does not bode well. I hope that this is only the style of presentation chosen by the presenter). Nature of ESA in situ probe(s) to be decided. ESA Cosmic Vision outer planet mission. ESA is considering three missions for the next cosmic vision mission: an outer planets joint mission with NASA (Jupiter or Titan/Saturn), XEUS (X-ray observatory), or LISA (gravity wave observatory). Down select to two of the three end of '09, final single mission selected in 2011. Radioisotope power. Lots of technical update, but a gem in the backup, the ASRG (Sterling engine) mission concepts being studied in more detail than I've seen elsewhere: Moon polar rover (2 concepts) Titan boat(!) Io observer Trojan lander Comet lander Comet coma rendezvou sample return Mars lander drill ("a tour through Martian history") Venus balloons (2) -------------------- |
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Apr 21 2008, 07:27 AM
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14433 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Still not getting your point. We're no where near the end of the discussion as to what ESA and NASA might not fly. You're making an assumption about flying X and then finding funding to also get onboard Y. As yet - we don't know if X or Y will fly, or who will contribute, in what way, to which. There are far too many unknowns and options to establish what may or may not happen.
And remember - you're not going to have 'substantial contributions' from one space agency to another. You can have instruments going across, maybe a very large sub system ( HGA on Cassini for example ) but that's it. Doug |
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Apr 21 2008, 10:57 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 307 Joined: 16-March 05 Member No.: 198 |
Still not getting your point. We're no where near the end of the discussion as to what ESA and NASA might not fly. You're making an assumption about flying X and then finding funding to also get onboard Y. As yet - we don't know if X or Y will fly, or who will contribute, in what way, to which. There are far too many unknowns and options to establish what may or may not happen. Now you've lost me! I have no idea which assumption of mine you're alluding to with your X and Y. Please clarify! But that aside... Correct me if I'm wrong but some time later this year, c. November, isn't there a decision expected as as to which OPF will proceed (and thus get entitled to that $2.1 billion dollars of NASA's for the next OPF): the Jovian one or the Saturnian one? NASA and ESA will both down-select to one outer planet mission this fall, [Curt] Niebur [program officer for outer planets research at NASA headquarters in Washington] explained [to space.com]. Granted nothing's going to be flying for quite some time. It may even be that the 2015/7 OPF, whichever it may be, will never fly at all. It's happened before. (By my count this has to be at least the third attempt to get an EO off the ground, after the original EO and JIMO.) Nevertheless in one sense time is rapidly running out. After November there will only be one team, not two, in line for the 2015/7 slot. The losers will have to cool their heels until the time comes to decide who will get the next OPF slot in c.2025. (I got that date, BTW, from one of the presentations shown at the recent OPAG meeting.) I would hate for it to be third time unlucky for the EO team. ====== Stephen |
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