Launch vehicle, Atlas V |
Launch vehicle, Atlas V |
Jun 3 2006, 01:19 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 134 Joined: 13-March 05 Member No.: 191 |
NASA has decided to use the Atlas V, with 4 strap-on solid rocket boosters to launch MSL. This is the same rocket that launched MRO (no solids) and New Horizons (5 solids).
Cost: $194.7 million, less than half the price of the Titan IV which would have been needed a few years ago. Rocky Mountain News article NASA press release |
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Jun 3 2006, 03:44 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
This just points out another truth behind the funding levels required for planetary missions. If you let your scientific goals dictate the mass of the spacecraft, you have to accept the additional cost of a larger booster to get you there. If you let the cost of the booster drive your total mass budget, then you have to sacrifice some of your science objectives in order to "afford the ride."
A fifth of a billion dollars just to get yourself on a path to Mars... no wonder there are so few missions that can fit under the Discovery mission cost caps. -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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