AVIATR - Titan Airplane Mission Concept, Proposed unmanned aerial exploration of Titan |
AVIATR - Titan Airplane Mission Concept, Proposed unmanned aerial exploration of Titan |
Apr 16 2010, 12:20 AM
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 |
The AVIATR mission concept is an unmanned aerial vehicle that would fly over Titan’s surface. It’s nominal one year mission would enable detailed high-resolution images of Titan’s diverse landscapes for better comparison to Earth’s geological processes. Selected regions could be imaged at resolutions near 30 cm/pixel, equivalent to current HiRise imaging of Mars. In addition, atmospheric sampling would allow a profile of Titan’s thick lower atmosphere and how it relates to Earth’s atmospheric processes and weather systems.
Further details of the AVIATR mission concept were presented at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference 2010 and at Titan Through Time 2010. See: Barnes et al. LPSC 41 (2010) Abstract 2551. “AVIATR: Aerial Vehicle for In-situ and Airborne Titan Reconnaissance.” Freely available here: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2010/pdf/2551.pdf And also: http://www.info.uidaho.edu/documents/2010%...18467&doc=1 -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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Jun 23 2010, 01:30 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 656 Joined: 20-April 05 From: League City, Texas Member No.: 285 |
I'm really bothered by the very low (2 Gb) projected data return. This just doesn't sound like a lot of return for a billion dollar investment. Even with compression, 2 Gb doesn't add up to a lot of images (try going on vacation with only a 2 Gb flash card for your digicam), and this mission has the potential to explore much of Titan. Also, the 30 cm/pixel maximum resolution of the surface is on par with what I would expect from an orbiter, not an aircraft. I'd be reasonably happy with 3 mm per pixel (presumably associated with occasional low passes over targets of interest), and I'd like to see data return increased by at least a factor of 10, preferably 100. Possibly the greater data return might be achieved by storing much of the data until near end of mission, then achieving an intact landing and then leisurely transmitting the remainder over a period of months or years; I could even envision adding a very lightweight parabolic antenna to be deployed post-landing to accelerate data return.
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Jun 28 2010, 03:51 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 131 Joined: 30-August 06 From: Moscow, Idaho Member No.: 1086 |
the 30 cm/pixel maximum resolution of the surface is on par with what I would expect from an orbiter, not an aircraft. I'd be reasonably happy with 3 mm per pixel (presumably associated with occasional low passes over targets of interest), Hi -- this is Jason Barnes. I'm proposing AVIATR as Principal Investigator. I appreciate the attention to AVIATR around here -- keep up the comments! While 30cm/pixel is what HiRISE is getting at Mars, you're not ever going to get that from an orbiter at Titan. Here's why. Because Mars' atmosphere is so thin, and because its gravity is relatively high, you can orbit Mars at just 150 km altitude safely to take pictures. In contrast, Titan's atmosphere is super-thick and its gravity only 1/7 that of the Earth -- this means that if you're orbiting Titan, you need to be orbiting at 1500 km instead of 150 km. That's a degradation of a factor of 10 in spatial resolution. In addition, you're at 10AU from the Sun so you'd need to have a primary mirror 6 times the diameter of the equivalent for Mars, even with the lower resolution. Now take into account that HiRISE at Titan would see nothing but haze. You'll need to go out to 5 microns, where the atmosphere is nearly transparent, to do as well at Titan. But the Sun is much dimmer at 5-microns than it is in the visible. And this would mean super-cooled optics, and an infrared detection system. The bottom line is that to do the equivalent of HiRISE at Titan would require something like a 10-meter JWST sent out to Saturn and burned into orbit around Titan. Not going to happen. Even TSSM was baselining 50-meters-per-pixel global imaging for the orbiter. Taking high-resolution imagery for Titan's surface makes sense from an aerial platform. You can use all of that pesky air to your advantage, instead of fighting it with a giant orbiter. AVIATR would have 100 times better resolution than the TSSM orbiter. Resolution isn't everything, though, and we're going to great lengths in order to gather context imaging in order to be able to interpret our high-resolution postage stamps, too. - Jason W. Barnes |
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