KBO encounters |
KBO encounters |
Aug 2 2008, 12:53 PM
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#201
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 6 Joined: 1-August 08 Member No.: 4280 |
Hi,
I’m regular follower of NH and I’m also interested in the 2nd leg of the mission, i.e the 2016+ KBOs encounters. Does anyone know when operations about this leg (starting with searching objects of interest with HST or some other earth-based means, I suppose) are expected to begin ? |
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Aug 18 2015, 07:09 PM
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#202
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Director of Galilean Photography Group: Members Posts: 896 Joined: 15-July 04 From: Austin, TX Member No.: 93 |
Yes, the original stretch goal was two KBOs, but the difficulty of searching for KBOs limited them to just the ones they found. The original ground search didn't yield any viable targets, they had to request Hubble time and were lucky to find two. It's possible they could find another, but I doubt they would be given more Hubble time. It doesn't go to waste though, as I understand it the fuel is required for pointing so any extra fuel means a longer extended mission. I think the fuel is the limiting factor, not the RTG. Might be possible at End of Mission to leave NH spinning so it can still occasionally communicate with Earth, but I don't know how long that would be effective before it moved enough Earth would be out of its cone. Although, it has such a large data recorder, maybe the mission could set it up to target a direction to Earth X years past end-of-mission? Point it to where Earth will be in 20 years, set up an autonomous mode to store data, start spinning, and hope for the best.
-------------------- Space Enthusiast Richard Hendricks
-- "The engineers, as usual, made a tremendous fuss. Again as usual, they did the job in half the time they had dismissed as being absolutely impossible." --Rescue Party, Arthur C Clarke Mother Nature is the final inspector of all quality. |
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Aug 19 2015, 03:56 PM
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#203
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Right now, I feel like there's one key observation to make, given what was seen at Pluto, and that's whether the surfaces of tiny icy bodies are as ancient as those of tiny rocky bodies. Since we saw that Pluto and Charon (which aren't tiny) seem to have had thermal evolution going on much later than expected, it would be good to get one observation at the smaller end of the size spectrum.
Both of the leading candidates are well smaller than Mimas, so if we see anything but an ancient surface, that'll be a bombshell. |
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