Just for fun - 30 minutes of probe data Options

[NickF]

Suppose you could have 30 minutes worth of robotic probe data from any object in the Solar System (either in orbit around it or from the surface). The technology used should not be significantly advanced from that in use today (no tachyon scanners). What target would you choose, and why?

I think my choice would have to be a mini-submarine in the sunless seas on Europa equipped with a video camera (and a suitably strong source of light), a hydrophone and a mass spectrometer. Imagine hearing the creak of the ice, catching a glimpse of something unexpected on the camera and MS data of unusually complex organic molecules.

Well I can dream, right?

[mchan]

Pack today's state of art remote and in-situ instruments plus power and comm with enough bandwidth to send real time data back from a 30 minute say 5 Km altitude orbital speed pass over south pole of Enceladus orthogonal to the tiger stripes, including a stereo multi-wavelength 60 fps Kaguya-like wide angle HDTV video looking out from 30 degrees off nadir to the horizon at right angles to flight path, a HiRISE-like hi-res stripe, imaging spectrometers, mass spectrometer, particle analyzers. Using the circular orbit calculator, I get a period of 160 minutes, so 30 minutes is about 19% of the circumference of Enceladus. Now all you just have to do is magically get all that mass into a 5 Km high polar orbit around Enceladus. A slight drawback is if it goes about now, about half the pass will be in Saturnshine. Time the pass as Enceladus crosses Saturn terminator so the video catches the planet on the horizon. If it helps, I'll chip in 50 bucks for the Blu-ray.

[Hungry4info]

Using the circular orbit calculator, I get a period of 160 minutes, so 30 minutes is about 19% of the circumference of Enceladus. Now all you just have to do is magically get all that mass into a 5 Km high polar orbit around Enceladus.

I would think such an orbit is unstable, because Enceladus has a very small hill sphere, and any orbit non-coplanar with the moons would be a lot of fun trying to keep stable, that close to Saturn anyway.