ExoMars |
ExoMars |
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4180840.stm
Europe has fixed on a concept for its next mission to land on the Red Planet. It aims to send a single robot rover to the Martian surface along with another, stationary, science package. |
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#2
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Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 234 Joined: 8-May 05 Member No.: 381 ![]() |
An interesting article, but I don't quite see how the arrangement they describe is possible. The U.S. Mars Science Orbiter's projected funding is already so tight that a HiRISE-class imager has been dropped from the baseline payload. Carrying ExoMars in the same launch means a larger, more expensive rocket. It's a nice idea, but this would cost the U.S. more money, not save money (by combining U.S. and European missions) as I have previously read.
BTW, the article got one thing wrong. U.S.-built nuclear heaters are not called radioisotope thermoelectric generators, they're known as radioisotope heater units (RHUs). |
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#3
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Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 706 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 ![]() |
An interesting article, but I don't quite see how the arrangement they describe is possible. The U.S. Mars Science Orbiter's projected funding is already so tight that a HiRISE-class imager has been dropped from the baseline payload. Carrying ExoMars in the same launch means a larger, more expensive rocket. It's a nice idea, but this would cost the U.S. more money, not save money (by combining U.S. and European missions) as I have previously read. NASA claims that it has about $700m for the 2016 opportunity (I don't see where they get that much and still meet other commitments, but that's another story). That was assumed to me enough for an orbiter that follows up on the methane discovery, possibly enough for meteorological studies, but not for a hi-rise class instrument and the ultrastable orbiter needed to use it. Adding the exomars orbiter will bump up the launcher cost by $100m(?) but adding hi-rise beefing up the orbiter which I think is about $300m. I'm traveling so don't have access to all my data so the specific numbers are probably wrong but the ballpark is probably right. -------------------- |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 18th June 2024 - 08:53 AM |
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