Future Venus Missions |
Future Venus Missions |
Jul 1 2005, 01:30 AM
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10256 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
Oh well, might as well start that new topic since it's already well advanced in the Juno area...
My perspective on landers is as follows. All the landers we've had so far were dropped blind onto an essentially unknown surface. Any future landers can be targeted for specific terrains. It really is not true that we have had representative landings. Even a descent image or two, a panoramic photo plus a bit of surface composition, from a simple Venera-class lander just updated a bit, would be useful if we could put several down at well chosen targets. My choices would be: Examples of the main plains units (smooth, fractured, ridged) tesserae high elevation radar-bright tesserae large fresh lava flow unit ('fluctus') crater dark parabola crater ejecta outflow unit dunes area. And I have always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that it would be relatively easy to put these down, so they ought to be fairly inexpensive as planetary landers go. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PDF: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Jul 16 2009, 09:34 AM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 57 Joined: 13-February 06 From: Brisbane, Australia Member No.: 679 |
Hi Guys
Geoff Landis discusses aerobots and surface rovers in some detail. New Silicon carbide electronics can operate at 500 C for hundreds of hours, so they'd be ideal for the rover... Landis Paper for NASA VEXAG presentation from 2008 ...such a mission would stretch the state-of-the-art, which is a worthwhile goal for NASA. Would also allow design of deep-probes for the gas-giants! Down to the 200 bar level on Jupiter, 300 on Saturn and 800 bar on Uranus/Neptune. |
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Jul 16 2009, 12:35 PM
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Forum Contributor Group: Members Posts: 1374 Joined: 8-February 04 From: North East Florida, USA. Member No.: 11 |
The Landis paper is really interesting, I did not realise electronics could operate reliably at 500 C.
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Jul 16 2009, 03:52 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1598 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
The Landis paper is really interesting, I did not realise electronics could operate reliably at 500 C. I don't think they can, yet. I think automotive applications are pushing silicon CMOS electronics to over 200C, and coupled with the reliability requirements of cars, they might start using SiC when it gets to the VLSI stage. Reading the paper, they fully admit that SiC has been played with at 500C, but only on the order of a single logical gate. Their comment, not mine, is that this is comparable with the state of the art during the Mercury program. Between now and when it's used on a spacecraft, someone needs to progress the technology from 10 transistors to a few thousand for a microcontroller. And validate both volatile and nonvolatile memories of some sort. If they get a flip-flop working at 500C, they're golden. The nonvolatile memory can be magnetic coils, Apollo-style. ...as I keep reading... Yup, they say memory is still a big unknown in SiC. Oh, and they say it's not yet complementary, so it's higher power than CMOS (where the C stands for complementary). They also waffle back an forth about what would be heavier: Electronics running at 300C and a big cooling system. Or Electronics running at 500C and a smaller cooling system. Personally, I'd bet that any mission in the next few decades doesn't have any large ICs running at 500C. I'd love to be wrong, though. Maybe private industry will find some application that needs it. Geothermal power or efficient furnaces or something. |
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