Pioneers Ancestor - the Advanced Planetary Probe Options

[gndonald]

I occasionally look through the NTRS and today I've found the ancestor of Pioneer 10 & 11, the Advanced Planetary probe. Yet again I get a look at what might have been, a concerted evolutionary program starting in 1972 that would have led to the dropping of a re-entry capsule into the Jovian atmosphere sometime in the 1980's.

That is, of course if the first probe survived the Jovian radiation belts and I'm not sure if the planned probe would have done so.

See:

1. Advanced planetary probe study. Volume 1 - Study approach Final technical report(5mb)

2. Advanced planetary probe study. Volume 2 - Spin-stabilized spacecraft for the basic mission Final technical report(35mb)

3. Advanced planetary probe study. Volume 3 - Alternate spacecraft and missions Final technical report(14.7mb)

4. Advanced planetary probe study. Volume 4 - Appendixes Final technical report(7mb)

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Here's what looks like the Voyager ancestor, TOPS concept (Thermo-electric Outer Planets Spacecraft)
(NASA EP-82):

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

While we're at it, here's the next one, Galileo concept of 1980 (JPL image P-20772):

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Voyager Mars concept, which was planned between 1966 to 1968 for launch in 1974...

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Time for another "ancestor" spacecraft image, here's another Voyager ancestor, TOPS concept (Thermo-electric Outer Planets Spacecraft):

[Paolo]

Another ancestor: the Titan lander proposed as a "purple pigeon" mission by JPL in 1976.
The poor quality image is a scan of a photocopy from Aviation Week (9 august 1976). If anybody has a good quality image (publication-quality in particular) let me know

[gndonald]

I finally got around to reading the 3rd Volume of the Advanced Planetary probe report (Now linked to the OP). It is very interesting material, especially the discussion of mid 60's era entry probes.

It seems that they (probably correctly) viewed the problem as being almost beyond the state of the art (At that time) and wanted to use a 'skip' re-entry with the probe bouncing off the Jovian atmosphere several times before it's final destruction. Due to weight considerations instrumentation was going to be limited to accelerometers and doppler tracking.