How infeasible is a Kuiper Belt equivalent of Dawn |
How infeasible is a Kuiper Belt equivalent of Dawn |
Nov 25 2008, 01:41 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 22 Joined: 3-January 07 Member No.: 1551 |
I presume that it is completely infeasible without a very powerful nuclear reactor and many years' production of ion engines to do anything remotely like Dawn in the Kuiper belt - the distances are just too long.
Is it in fact feasible with current technology even to get a probe into orbit around Haumea or Makemake? I'd suspect not, that the speed you need to get it out to the Kuiper belt in a lifetime is much too great to cancel down to orbital velocity. |
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Nov 25 2008, 02:29 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 293 Joined: 22-September 08 From: Spain Member No.: 4350 |
(warning: ignorant speculation) A "Huygens like" orbiter maybe? Send a robotic micro-orbiter on batteries without Direct-to-Earth communications hardware, orbit the KBO during several days, hibernate until the flyby probe passes by and upload the data to it so it's slowly retrieved through the DSN pipe.
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 3rd May 2024 - 07:33 PM |
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