[X] My Assistant

[PhilHorzempa]

Perhaps most of us will never be a PI on one of NASA's Discovery, New Frontiers
or Flagship missions. However, let's not have that stop us, the UMSF community
from suggesting, and describing, mission concepts that have been rattling around
in our brains for some time. I'll start the ball rolling.

My fantasy mission (Discovery or NF class?) would be the Jupiter Flyer 1. This
would be an unmanned airplane, named after the Wrights' first airplane, that
would fly through the atmosphere of Jupiter. Its exterior would be covered
with cameras, showing views in all directions as it glided through the atmosphere
looking for thermals.

I know that most talk of Jupiter probes concerns deep atmospheric probes,
such as the one on the Galileo mission. However, I want to see photos of
towering cumulo-nimbus clouds, not just streams of numbers on P, T and
composition.

That's it in a nutshell. Are there any more takers?


Another Phil

[nprev]

Here's another thought I floated earlier, but may bear repeating: How about a Mars orbiter equipped to detect transient events?

What I'm thinking here is a wide-field camera coupled with moving target indication software, operating in real time (no recording unless commanded). After substracting the inherent overfly motion of the spacecraft, any detected movement over a 1-5 sec timeframe triggers a narrow field cam to zoom in & record the event...landslide, CO2 geyser, dust devil, streak formation, meteor impact...hot spring emission?...

Scientifically and pragmatically, understanding the currently active processes on Mars seems crucial for formulation of long-term exploration strategies. Hard to do that well without establishing the frequency and complete nature of such events.

Also, from a marketing standpoint, can you imagine a more exciting orbiter mission? Can't overlook the cool factor.

[siravan]

Here's another thought I floated earlier, but may bear repeating: How about a Mars orbiter equipped to detect transient events?

Very interesting idea. However, it will be technically challenging. To catch most transient events, you need a relatively high resolution (e.g. CTX-like). Having a wide area coverage with such as resolution probably needs a telescope like LSST. Even if you can get such a behemoth into the Mars orbit, the amount of data it generates needs a supercomputer to process. A typical RAD6000 computer used in most of the recent Mars probes is orders of magnitude weaker than needed for this task (in fact, it is not even as powerful as a common PDA).

Now, looking for meteor impact is another story. I guess it is technically feasible. You need a relatively low-resolution IR telescope (it might be even better if it only looks at the night side, maybe park it in L2 point). IIRC, the expected impact frequency is 10-20/yr. As such low rate, it might be difficult to justify the expense and trouble of such a mission, even if it has a discovery price tag.

[djellison]

A typical RAD6000 computer used in most of the recent Mars probes is orders of magnitude weaker than needed for this task....

Use a RAD750 then. Very nearly 10x the processing power of a RAD6000. For the sort of number crunching involved or this - you would have a FPGA on the instrument itself anyway. Think of the FPGAs on HiRISE processing 28.6 megapixels per ccd per second. I'm sure if the need was there, it could be done with no problems at all.