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Amount of fuel onboard, Potential life expectancy?
briv1016
post Jul 1 2008, 05:53 AM
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Assuming that there are no MGS type anomalies and funding holds out (according to NASA's FY09 budget, the current extension ends in September); how much longer can Odyssey remain operational with the fuel onboard?

(I know you guys are strict about starting new threads, but I couldn't find any other thread related to this topic.)
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nprev
post Jul 1 2008, 03:58 PM
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Yeah, and that's my point. Not getting a warm fuzzy for lander relay capability during the next decade at all, and I'd sure love to see a mission proposal for at least a gapfiller orbiter to cover the next three surface missions. When it comes to Mars, you need to wear a belt and suspenders, IMHO.

Long ago on another thread far, far away I proposed a transient event detection (TED) capability for a follow-on Mars orbiter. This would look for things like landslides, dust devils, CO2 geysers in the South Polar region, and maybe, just maybe, H2O hot spring detection. This seems like a viable science objective: understanding the nature and frequency of currently active surface processes is manifestly of interest across many disciplines, and certainly of great interest to long term manned mission planning. And, of course, any orbiter would have a relay capability for surface missions.

To me, this looks like a desirable convergence. Hell, I'll even admit that I invented TED to sex up the idea of a new orbiter...because the bottom line is that sooner or later we're gonna need one quite badly.


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djellison
post Jul 1 2008, 04:11 PM
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QUOTE (nprev @ Jul 1 2008, 04:58 PM) *
Not getting a warm fuzzy for lander relay capability during the next decade at all,


Well - I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling for a requirement for lander relay capability during the next decade either.

Seriously - MSL is the only landed asset firmly scheduled. That's it. The next up to the pad is, currently, the last.

We do have the next scout, which will be an orbiter with at least Odyssey like relay ability - which will (if you presume a decade lifespan) relay capacity out to at least 2020+. There's no reason to expect MRO, MEX and MODY to all die especially soon either. MRO, imho, will last a LONG time.

Doug
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andrea
post Jul 2 2008, 05:50 AM
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One thing to consider is that not all relay capabilities in the existing orbiters are equal.

MRO relay capabilities (higher data rates and the capability of changing data rates during a pass) will allow MSL a 4x,5x times the data volume is possible with ODY (MEX has even lower data rate 128 kbps and an eliptical orbit that do not make the tactical planning easy). Phoenix and the MERs have the same UHF radio as ODY and cannot really take advantage of the MRO capabilities. So while I am extremely proud on how Odyssey relay worked all this year, the functional redundancy does not offer the same capabilities. If MSL lasts many many years this could be indeed a problem.

For EDL communications also more the better. The overall MSL launch/arrival strategy is terrible complicated amongst the other things so that at least one orbiter will cover.

This is an area where Europe should definitely step in and help fill in some gap.

QUOTE (djellison @ Jul 1 2008, 05:11 PM) *
Well - I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling for a requirement for lander relay capability during the next decade either.

Seriously - MSL is the only landed asset firmly scheduled. That's it. The next up to the pad is, currently, the last.

We do have the next scout, which will be an orbiter with at least Odyssey like relay ability - which will (if you presume a decade lifespan) relay capacity out to at least 2020+. There's no reason to expect MRO, MEX and MODY to all die especially soon either. MRO, imho, will last a LONG time.

Doug

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Posts in this topic
- briv1016   Amount of fuel onboard   Jul 1 2008, 05:53 AM
- - nprev   ...Don't think that anyone is strict about new...   Jul 1 2008, 06:12 AM
- - djellison   http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/newsroom/.../2004...   Jul 1 2008, 07:40 AM
- - TheChemist   It probably is Doug. Citing from the above article...   Jul 1 2008, 09:36 AM
|- - MahFL   MGS died......   Jul 1 2008, 10:56 AM
|- - brellis   "The Odyssey mission is in excellent health, ...   Dec 16 2010, 06:53 AM
- - nprev   Yeah, and that's my point. Not getting a warm ...   Jul 1 2008, 03:58 PM
|- - djellison   QUOTE (nprev @ Jul 1 2008, 04:58 PM) Not ...   Jul 1 2008, 04:11 PM
|- - andrea   One thing to consider is that not all relay capabi...   Jul 2 2008, 05:50 AM
- - nprev   Hope so...but as an old crusty avionics maintenanc...   Jul 1 2008, 04:24 PM
- - elakdawalla   Thanks guys, this'll be this week or next week...   Jul 1 2008, 11:03 PM
- - briv1016   Thanks guys.   Jul 2 2008, 12:19 AM
- - Mariner9   I rather doubt having 3 operational orbiters and 3...   Jul 6 2008, 05:26 PM
- - PhilCo126   Mars Odyssey performed well (Launched April 2001, ...   Oct 31 2008, 03:34 PM
|- - MahFL   It's good till at least September 2010. ...   Oct 31 2008, 03:56 PM
- - nprev   I don't see why not. An operational mission is...   Oct 31 2008, 03:53 PM
- - PhilCo126   Great that made my sol Remember Mars Global Su...   Oct 31 2008, 04:02 PM
|- - tedstryk   QUOTE (PhilCo126 @ Oct 31 2008, 04:02 PM)...   Dec 25 2008, 03:15 PM
- - nprev   Yeah...but then again, similar sorts of things cou...   Dec 25 2008, 10:24 PM
|- - tedstryk   My point is that it didn't have anything to do...   Dec 26 2008, 05:01 AM
|- - rlorenz   QUOTE (tedstryk @ Dec 26 2008, 12:01 AM) ...   Dec 26 2008, 04:33 PM
|- - djellison   QUOTE (rlorenz @ Dec 26 2008, 04:33 PM) S...   Dec 26 2008, 06:47 PM
- - nprev   Hmm. There are a lot of ways to think about this. ...   Dec 26 2008, 09:36 PM
- - tty   In my experience the critical resource in keeping ...   Dec 27 2008, 03:09 PM
- - kenny   Hard to know quite where to put this post, but ...   Sep 17 2012, 10:52 AM


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