Amount of fuel onboard, Potential life expectancy? |
Amount of fuel onboard, Potential life expectancy? |
Jul 1 2008, 05:53 AM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 239 Joined: 18-December 07 From: New York Member No.: 3982 |
Assuming that there are no MGS type anomalies and funding holds out (according to NASA's FY09 budget, the current extension ends in September); how much longer can Odyssey remain operational with the fuel onboard?
(I know you guys are strict about starting new threads, but I couldn't find any other thread related to this topic.) |
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Jul 1 2008, 03:58 PM
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#2
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Yeah, and that's my point. Not getting a warm fuzzy for lander relay capability during the next decade at all, and I'd sure love to see a mission proposal for at least a gapfiller orbiter to cover the next three surface missions. When it comes to Mars, you need to wear a belt and suspenders, IMHO.
Long ago on another thread far, far away I proposed a transient event detection (TED) capability for a follow-on Mars orbiter. This would look for things like landslides, dust devils, CO2 geysers in the South Polar region, and maybe, just maybe, H2O hot spring detection. This seems like a viable science objective: understanding the nature and frequency of currently active surface processes is manifestly of interest across many disciplines, and certainly of great interest to long term manned mission planning. And, of course, any orbiter would have a relay capability for surface missions. To me, this looks like a desirable convergence. Hell, I'll even admit that I invented TED to sex up the idea of a new orbiter...because the bottom line is that sooner or later we're gonna need one quite badly. -------------------- 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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Jul 1 2008, 04:11 PM
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#3
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14433 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Not getting a warm fuzzy for lander relay capability during the next decade at all, Well - I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling for a requirement for lander relay capability during the next decade either. Seriously - MSL is the only landed asset firmly scheduled. That's it. The next up to the pad is, currently, the last. We do have the next scout, which will be an orbiter with at least Odyssey like relay ability - which will (if you presume a decade lifespan) relay capacity out to at least 2020+. There's no reason to expect MRO, MEX and MODY to all die especially soon either. MRO, imho, will last a LONG time. Doug |
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Jul 2 2008, 05:50 AM
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#4
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 11 Joined: 11-June 08 From: Portsmouth (England) Member No.: 4202 |
One thing to consider is that not all relay capabilities in the existing orbiters are equal.
MRO relay capabilities (higher data rates and the capability of changing data rates during a pass) will allow MSL a 4x,5x times the data volume is possible with ODY (MEX has even lower data rate 128 kbps and an eliptical orbit that do not make the tactical planning easy). Phoenix and the MERs have the same UHF radio as ODY and cannot really take advantage of the MRO capabilities. So while I am extremely proud on how Odyssey relay worked all this year, the functional redundancy does not offer the same capabilities. If MSL lasts many many years this could be indeed a problem. For EDL communications also more the better. The overall MSL launch/arrival strategy is terrible complicated amongst the other things so that at least one orbiter will cover. This is an area where Europe should definitely step in and help fill in some gap. Well - I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling for a requirement for lander relay capability during the next decade either. Seriously - MSL is the only landed asset firmly scheduled. That's it. The next up to the pad is, currently, the last. We do have the next scout, which will be an orbiter with at least Odyssey like relay ability - which will (if you presume a decade lifespan) relay capacity out to at least 2020+. There's no reason to expect MRO, MEX and MODY to all die especially soon either. MRO, imho, will last a LONG time. Doug |
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