Neptune Orbiter, Another proposed mission |
Neptune Orbiter, Another proposed mission |
Nov 10 2005, 03:51 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 509 Joined: 2-July 05 From: Calgary, Alberta Member No.: 426 |
This seems like a good place to start off the Uranus and Neptune forum: with the next ice-giants mission.
I will admit to not knowing a whole lot about the Neptune Orbiter With Probes (NOWP), other than the fact that it's in the planning stages, and a few other details I've gathered from Wikipedia and various other Internet sources. Anyone care to get this one going with a bit more information? |
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Mar 29 2007, 07:49 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 688 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Sweden Member No.: 273 |
Being an aerospace person I feel I have to do some counter arm-waving. It takes a looong time for new technology to become mature enough and robust enough for flight-rating, much less space-rating. Components that doesn't even exist yet probably won't be flying until the 2020's at the earliest.
Also not everything can be miniaturized. Maybe DSN can handle a 1 watt signal from Jupiter - but not a non-directional one or communications with Galileo would not have been a problem. So You need a directional antenna, and good directivity means that the antenna has to be large compared to the wavelength of the signal. Ion engines are just dandy for the long haul but they are utterly useless for orbit insertion, so the flight profile would either mean having to decelerate for nearly half the distance to avoid arriving with too high speed or adding a conventional rocket for the insertion burn. In either case much of the savings in weight/time is lost. |
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