March OPAG presentations available |
March OPAG presentations available |
Apr 8 2008, 09:37 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 706 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 |
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/march_08_meeting/agenda.html
LOTS of interesting material here. Some highlights that interested me: Cassini extended-extended mission (XXM) could last 7 years and end with a series of very close (10,000's km) polar orbits through the D ring gap to enable close in gravity and magnetometer mapping a la Juno Argo proposal would be a New Horizon's class fly by of a Trojan, Saturn, Neptune/Triton, and one or more KBOs for ~$800M (but requires radioactive power source, so would seem to be out of contention for next New Frontiers) Joint Jupiter mission design. NASA supplied Europa orbiter now required to conduct Jupiter system science including up to 4 Io flybys. To fit within the $2.1B cap (with 33% margin), Europa orbit would be reduced to 60 days and several instruments from the Flagship proposal would be dropped including the narrow angle camera) Titan mission. Aerocapture no longer allowed, so craft would enter Saturn orbit first. Potentially allows new Enceladus observations. (Editorial note: Presentation was long on concepts, short on specifics. If this is an indication of the maturity of the mission concept, this does not bode well. I hope that this is only the style of presentation chosen by the presenter). Nature of ESA in situ probe(s) to be decided. ESA Cosmic Vision outer planet mission. ESA is considering three missions for the next cosmic vision mission: an outer planets joint mission with NASA (Jupiter or Titan/Saturn), XEUS (X-ray observatory), or LISA (gravity wave observatory). Down select to two of the three end of '09, final single mission selected in 2011. Radioisotope power. Lots of technical update, but a gem in the backup, the ASRG (Sterling engine) mission concepts being studied in more detail than I've seen elsewhere: Moon polar rover (2 concepts) Titan boat(!) Io observer Trojan lander Comet lander Comet coma rendezvou sample return Mars lander drill ("a tour through Martian history") Venus balloons (2) -------------------- |
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Apr 21 2008, 01:30 PM
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#2
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 47 Joined: 16-July 05 Member No.: 435 |
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/march_08_meeting/agenda.html Radioisotope power. Lots of technical update, but a gem in the backup, the ASRG (Sterling engine) mission concepts being studied in more detail than I've seen elsewhere: Moon polar rover (2 concepts) Titan boat(!) Io observer Trojan lander Comet lander Comet coma rendezvou sample return Mars lander drill ("a tour through Martian history") Venus balloons (2) I am a little puzzled. My understanding is that the whole point of an ASRG-powered Discovery mission is to validate Stirling engine technology so it could be applied to outer planet missions down the road. But if the Discovery mission in question has a very long transit time (Titan boat, Trojan lander), doesn't that put off the validation -- and next ASRG-powered mission design, -- well into 2020's? Or is it sufficient, from the viewpoint of power systems people, to say "OK, our Titan boat has been in flight for three years and ASRG is working fine -- it's validated"? Of course, for Moon polar landers and such the above does not apply. And I wonder if that will be a factor in selecting them. |
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Apr 21 2008, 01:53 PM
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#3
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
But if the Discovery mission in question has a very long transit time (Titan boat, Trojan lander), doesn't that put off the validation Shove the thing in space, anywhere, for X-years, and you're validated. If those X-Years are a cruise somewhere....then hell, you get longer duration testing, but it doesn't really matter when the science starts - the power supply's doing it's thing from the get-go. If you were testing a new type of sensor or camera or whatever, then yes, a long cruise might be annoying - but for a flight-system part such as comms, power, avionics - I'd have thought that essentially, flight is flight. Doug |
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