A Historical Vignette - SEP Asteroid Belt Mission, Proposed 1975-79 Asteroid Belt Survey Mission Options

[gndonald]

I've been searching the online documents at the NTRS for precursors to the Dawn mission and found something that while not directly precursory to Dawn, was certainly of interest.

In the early 1970's NASA had commissioned several studies into uses for solar-electric (eg. ion) propulsion. North American/Rockwell came up with a proposal for a single spacecraft to be launched on a three (+) year particles & fields survey of the asteroid belt.

The spacecraft was not going to be targeted on a specific asteroid, but it was expected that it would pass through the debris trails of the comets, Denning, Kulin & Shajn-Schaldach where data would be obtained on particle density and size.

The primary science instrument was an optical detector (not a camera) called Sisyphus designed to measure the size and velocity of particles that passed it's field of view.

Solar electric propulsion asteroid belt mission study. Final Report. Vol. 1, Summary Report

Solar electric propulsion asteroid belt mission study. Final Report. Vol. 2, Technical Report

Solar electric propulsion asteroid belt mission study. Final Report. Vol. 3, Program Development Plan

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[gndonald]

Just to let everyone know, the first and second volumes of the report are back online at the NTRS, the program development report is still offline.