PI's Perspective: What if Voyager had explored Pluto? Options

[Planet X]

Check out this latest PI's perspective. It is a very interesting read. I will be pointing out a similar and even more interesting concept later on. Stay tuned!

J P

[jasedm]

This is an interesting subject, and one I have somewhat ambivalent feelings about.

Avoiding the political ifs and buts of budgets and costs etc, I remember being crushingly disappointed that V1 was commanded to perform a close Titan flyby at Saturn, thereby ruling out Pluto as the last target of the grand tour. Especially, as in terms of imagery V1 was returning dozens of frames of a fuzzy (if beautiful) orange sphere. Data gleaned from that flyby was probably invaluable however in helping to design Cassini's optical systems, thereby vastly improving the later mission for Cassini at Titan.

Voyager has a larger antenna and steerable scan platform plus a bigger power budget, so would have I'm sure performed a very creditable flyby of Pluto in 1986. Also, not being aware of the Kuiper belt may have tempted mission designers to opt for a riskier very low altitude flyby; with image smear compensated for by the scan platform yielding potentially some extremely high-resolution images.

However, we have NH to look forward to now! - testament to the vision and determination of those who pushed for the mission (Alan Stern chief among them) whose disappointment at the loss of a potential Pluto flyby in '86 was I'm sure as big as mine.

12 months doesn't seem long to wait now....