LRO development Options

[jamescanvin]

Just read this interesting article about LRO

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/28apr_lro.htm

"This is the first in a string of missions," says Gordon Chin, project scientist for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "More robots will follow, about one per year, leading up to manned flight" no later than 2020."

One per Year? Is this just wishful thinking or have any tentitve plans been mentioned for follow up missions after LRO? If the next one is going to be 2009/10 then I guess some desisions about it will have to be made fairly soon.

James

[Phil Stooke]

Alex, your posts are very useful... Thanks.

Phil

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Alex, your posts are very useful... Thanks.

My pleasure, Phil. There are two more RLEP-related articles in the January 23, 2006, issue of AW&ST; unfortunately, online access to these articles is available only to subscribers. The second of these two "not-for-free" articles, "Robotic Lunar Lander Will Try For Water Samples" by Frank Morring, has an interesting passage:

THE TECHNOLOGY would be extensible to other landers, says Mike Booen, vice president for Raytheon's advanced missile defense product line, and would be available much faster and at lower cost than a new development. Raytheon is also studying whether it could be used on a piggyback LRO ground-sensor payload, one possibility under a new request for information put out by Ames Research Center, home of the RLEP program office (see p. 44).

If the secondary LRO payload is a lunar communications satellite, it could help solve the problem of communicating with sensors in deep craters, at least when the satellite is over the crater. Also being considered are trailing cables that would link the sensor with the lander on the crater rim. That, in turn, might help solve the problem of powering sensors in the dark crater bottoms. Other possibilities include batteries, fuel cells or a nuclear power source that converts heat from radioactive decay into electricity.

This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Jan 24 2006, 01:18 AM