Future Planetary Exploration |
Future Planetary Exploration |
Oct 20 2008, 07:11 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 718 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 |
I've started a new blog on this topic at http://futureplanets.blogspot.com/
This blog supplements UMSF by allowing on topic discussions that include politics and other topics not appropriate here. The first entry is up with some additional news on the MSL funding and schedule problems. -------------------- |
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Dec 8 2010, 05:02 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 796 Joined: 27-February 08 From: Heart of Europe Member No.: 4057 |
Price of Venus mobile explorer is estimated around 10 billion dollars. This is simply too much for any space agency.
Look here: http://sites.nationalacademies.org/SSB/SSB_059331 Another problem is shortcoming of plutonium. -------------------- |
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Dec 8 2010, 07:34 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 555 Joined: 27-September 10 Member No.: 5458 |
Price of Venus mobile explorer is estimated around 10 billion dollars. Interesting, I hadn't yet heard about this proposal. A slight correction, though it doesn't change the necessary cost feasibility: QUOTE Based on the Price H model and cost analogies during this 5-week study, we estimated at 70% confidence level the VME mission concept total cost of $1.1B to $1.7B (without launch vehicle; $1.9B with launch vehicle). This is beyond the New Frontiers cost limit (assumed to be $750M FY15), but in the low end of the flagship range. Technology-development costs of $90M (to bring new technology to a TRL 6 level) are included in the above mission cost estimate. A tremendous amount of uncertainty exists in the technology development cost, due to the immature nature of most of the essential technologies and unique testing which may not perform as assumed in this report. So ~$2bn instead but the price is still too high for a mission. They also note in the in the trade tree that wheels, as would be on a Venus rover, introduces too many complexities and a helium balloon-like transfer is instead preferred. I'm a little puzzled by that with as much research as has gone into the four Mars rovers but I'm sure there is a more detailed reason. Regardless, I stand corrected, it likely isn't to happen in the next decade. A mission I'm quite interested in is a flying drone observer sent to Mars. I can't find the name of the proposal but I was puzzled at the time that they claimed it would be powered by batteries and only last a couple of hours. Meanwhile the Solar Impulse team were releasing news about their first trip around the globe with a successful trip through a full night. I'm very hopeful to see these two technologies joined at some point. What better way to take a lot of data quickly over a vast area than from an aerial vehicle. Among other things, it would allow study of Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris, two very interesting geologic locations that are unlikely to be explored by rovers. Edit: ARES Platform -------------------- |
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