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March OPAG presentations available
Stephen
post Apr 21 2008, 10:57 AM
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QUOTE (djellison @ Apr 21 2008, 05:27 PM) *
Still not getting your point. We're no where near the end of the discussion as to what ESA and NASA might not fly. You're making an assumption about flying X and then finding funding to also get onboard Y. As yet - we don't know if X or Y will fly, or who will contribute, in what way, to which. There are far too many unknowns and options to establish what may or may not happen.

Now you've lost me! I have no idea which assumption of mine you're alluding to with your X and Y. Please clarify!

But that aside...

Correct me if I'm wrong but some time later this year, c. November, isn't there a decision expected as as to which OPF will proceed (and thus get entitled to that $2.1 billion dollars of NASA's for the next OPF): the Jovian one or the Saturnian one?
NASA and ESA will both down-select to one outer planet mission this fall, [Curt] Niebur [program officer for outer planets research at NASA headquarters in Washington] explained [to space.com].

Granted nothing's going to be flying for quite some time. It may even be that the 2015/7 OPF, whichever it may be, will never fly at all. It's happened before. (By my count this has to be at least the third attempt to get an EO off the ground, after the original EO and JIMO.)

Nevertheless in one sense time is rapidly running out. After November there will only be one team, not two, in line for the 2015/7 slot. The losers will have to cool their heels until the time comes to decide who will get the next OPF slot in c.2025. (I got that date, BTW, from one of the presentations shown at the recent OPAG meeting.)

I would hate for it to be third time unlucky for the EO team.
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Stephen
post Apr 21 2008, 11:15 AM
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QUOTE (volcanopele @ Apr 21 2008, 05:39 PM) *
Decoupled development schedules doesn't necessarily imply that these probes would be developed under different programs, however they are necessary due to the different schedules demands placed on the approved project by NASA and ESA. At least for the Jupiter mission, NASA wants the Europa Orbiter out the door by 2017 at the latest, while ESA won't get JPO out the door until 2018 at the earliest, 2020 if they couple it with Japan's Magnetospheric Orbiter.

That merely begs the question of why the EO and the JSO are being connected in such a fashion in the first place? They are arguably different missions with different objectives, developed at different rates (due to differing priorities; NASA apparently doesn't want to be held up by those lackidaisaical Europeans smile.gif ), and are even being (probably) launched at different times.

They're both orbiters, they're both going to Jupiter, and they (may) carry some of the other country's instruments on them. (Is that all they have in common?)

If so then that could equally describe (mutatis mutandis) Mars Express and MRO: both orbiters, both going to Mars, both carrying a related country's instruments on them.
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Mark6
post Apr 21 2008, 01:30 PM
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QUOTE (vjkane @ Apr 8 2008, 09:37 PM) *
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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djellison
post Apr 21 2008, 01:53 PM
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QUOTE (Mark6 @ Apr 21 2008, 02:30 PM) *
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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vjkane
post Apr 21 2008, 04:14 PM
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QUOTE (ngunn @ Apr 21 2008, 08:46 AM) *
Here's a question. Which of the two possible outer planets mission contributions is more likely to beat off the observatories in ESA's downselection? I'm guessing that's the Titan balloon-plus-landers. There is already a small corner of Titan that is forever Europe in the public mind (over here at least) - and it's unfinished business.

I agree. I think that if NASA picks the Europa mission, ESA is likely to decide that their Jupiter orbiter (and possibly Ganymede orbiter) covers too much of the same ground already covered by Galileo and then the Europa orbiter's Jupiter system observations. In this case, Europe, in my opinion, is likely to pick one of the other science missions.

If NASA picks the Titan mission, then I think Europe is much more to also pick the Titan mission. However, this is not certain. So NASA cannot use the possibility of ESA's decision to decide between the two missions.

Isn't this fun? It seems like a version of the prisoner's dilemma.


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stevesliva
post Apr 21 2008, 07:33 PM
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The prisoner's dilemma requires that the two parties not be allowed to communicate. Apt?

(I'll also say that the discussion between djellison and stephen seems to be fundamentally about whether mission objectives should be chosen, and bid out to the lowest bidder, rather than interfered with by national or institutional fiefdoms. Ideally, we'd develop objectives and have a competitive bid process for the lowest cost achievement of those objectives. But we have instead a beauty contest among objectives, with funding tied to a specific bidder. Once you win funding, you've got a monopoly on dollars for that objective, regardless of how much of it you waste.)
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Mariner9
post Apr 22 2008, 06:28 AM
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QUOTE (Stephen @ Apr 20 2008, 11:03 PM) *
They are also hardly going to help cut the overall cost of the project to make both more affordable to those who will be paying the bills. The Jovian proposal outlined in the recent presentation is not so much one flagship mission with two elements totalling $2+ billion as one flagship mission with two $2+ billion elements: a $2+ billion EO and a $2+ billion JSO! (And thus a grand total cost in excess of $4 billion.)

Can NASA and the ESA, even together, afford a $4+ billion mission to Jupiter?

Stephen



While I agree with many of the points you have made, I strongly doubt that the Jupiter orbiter that the ESA contributes would come anywhere close to 2 billion dollars. You keep basing your numbers on the JSO study that NASA did. There is no reason to assume that ESA would be bound to that study's basic assumptions or conclusions at all.

I was astounded when I read the JSO and the Europa Orbiter Flagship studies. The engineers put just about every instrument known to man on those craft, about the only thing those ships were missing were gold plated kitchen sinks. In fairness to the studies' authors, NASA ground rules were to design a flagship mission with a soft budget cap of 3 billion dollars. As a result, all the studies came back at around 3 billion (mostly on the plus side as I recall). But while the Titan flagship mission actually had reasonable downscope options putting the costs down to 2 billion for the Titan Orbiter, the JSO and Europa studies really didn't. Those ships were big, and expensive.

So, right off the bat I would point out that the JSO that NASA came up with is a very big cumbersome beast, and I think ESA is very unlikely to even contemplate trying to match it.

Other considerations are that ESA would likely be using Solar power, which is as I understand it somewhat cheaper than RTGs. Another thing to note is that JSO was supposed to be a solo mission, trying to accomplish every possible study it could for the entire Jovian system. However, with the Europa Orbiter being flown by NASA, the ESA JSO can fly a somewhat reduced number of instruments, and smaller optics (I had the impression that the hi-res imaging system on the JSO was going to be rather large).

So for the ESA mission we are talking about a smaller vehicle, fewer instruments, and a cheaper power supply. It will be tough to manage the 1 billion dollar cost cap they are shooting for, but considering that the instrument cost is not factored into their budget, they can very possibly manage it.

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Juramike
post May 5 2008, 03:12 PM
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It was close, but it looks like Europa edged out Titan for the solar system's awesomest moon:
http://io9.com/386452/satellite-smackdown-...stems-awesomest


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ngunn
post May 5 2008, 09:25 PM
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QUOTE (Juramike @ May 5 2008, 04:12 PM) *
It was close, but it looks like Europa edged out Titan for the solar system's awesomest moon:
http://io9.com/386452/satellite-smackdown-...stems-awesomest


'Don't mess with the moon with the water ocean under the ice'

Well which would that be then? wink.gif
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Juramike
post May 5 2008, 09:44 PM
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QUOTE (ngunn @ May 5 2008, 04:25 PM) *
'Don't mess with the moon with the water ocean under the ice'

Well which would that be then? wink.gif


Oh...right....

Whoo-hoo! Titan and Europa are tied! laugh.gif laugh.gif laugh.gif


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tedstryk
post May 6 2008, 04:26 AM
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I'm sorry, but whoever voted for colonizing Io is worthy of a Darwin award.


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nprev
post May 6 2008, 04:43 AM
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Mmm...natural 10cm-thick lead cranial shielding perhaps, Ted? rolleyes.gif


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A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Juramike
post Jul 9 2008, 04:09 PM
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space.com article on why Earth is so special for life.

Good summary, but the best part is that this sentence: "Though other bodies in our solar system, such as Saturn's moon Titan, seem like they could have once been hospitable to some form of life,"

This is the first recent article I've read that mentions "life in our solar system" and "Titan" but makes NO MENTION OF EUROPA.

Has the popular tide started to turn towards Saturn's largest moon?


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