[X] My Assistant

[SFJCody]

Is a Discovery class Titan lander/aerobot remotely conceivable?

It would be nice to see Cassini's relay capability get a second workout...

[djellison]

I certainly think a blimp or similar would be a wise idea - drifting during the long titanian day - and settling to the ground at night. In a world with a thick atmosphere and low gravity - Blimps work very VERY well

Problem is - it'd have to be RTG powered, so it'd have to be quite heavy - and thus very large - probably something like 1 - 1.5 tons to Titan - outside the scope of anything but the heaviest launch vehicles today - and even then, would require multiple flybys of multiple planets to get there.

Ideally you'd need a companion orbiter to relay - use electra technology relay in UHF - and get 100kbps from blimp to orbiter and orbiter to ground.

You could have a large heatshield of the blimp descent stage at the top/front of the spacecraft, and use it for Aerocapture at titan - saving a LOT on delta V

Doug