Discovery 2012 |
Discovery 2012 |
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#1
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![]() Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 611 Joined: 23-February 07 From: Occasionally in Columbia, MD Member No.: 1764 ![]() |
Article (and an opportunity to vote) on the Discovery program and the missions under consideration for summer 2012 selection
http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-set-to-cho...mission-1.10982 |
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#2
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 ![]() |
That's kind of a circular argument: if we knew everything about a place, we wouldn't need send a probe there, would we?
A lot of the theoretical possibilities (floating methane ice, for example) would be constrained by having one nice in situ measurement of the composition and liquid temperature of a Titan lake. The bummer is that the sun will set too soon over Ligea Mare, so we'll have another 13+ years to ruminate over the Cassini data before could we send a mission to the northern lakes.... [And I'm an ardent Titan supporter.] -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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#3
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Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 706 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 ![]() |
The bummer is that ... we'll have another 13+ years to ruminate over the Cassini data before could we send a mission to the northern lakes.... We can do a lake mission at any time. Since we missed this Discovery mission opportunity, a mission would have to use a data relay craft, which could either be the carrier or an orbiter. Just more expensive. The Decadal Survey costed such missions out to ~$1B if I remember correctly. See here and here. Unfortunately, the Survey members concluded, "The exploration of Titan's hydrocarbon lakes has high scientific potential and the Titan lake lander concepts appear feasible. However, based on the costs and the relatively limited science scope of a stand-alone lake probe without the orbiter and balloon elements, the stand-alone lake probe concepts were judged to be lower priority than a lake probe which was an element of a flagship mission, or some of the other mission concepts studied." -------------------- |
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