[X] My Assistant

[rlorenz]

Ahoy mateys!

NASA announces Discovery mission selection for Phase A.

Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) is among them. Har!

[JGodbaz]

Except that the vast majority of the data will probably be GCMS results, which are a little less photogenic, albeit very scientifically valuable.

[rlorenz]

Except that the vast majority of the data will probably be GCMS results, which are a little less photogenic, albeit very scientifically valuable.

I'm glad to see that you lot are thinking about all this - fun, isnt't it?

Obviously I'm not going to go into specifics but it is possible to address some of the questions that have
come up in very general terms.

Materials/temperatures - guys, come on. Huygens operated in this environment until its batteries ran
out. Launch vehicles - to say nothing of the liquified natural gas industry - deal with cryogenic fluids
all the time. Of course heat leaks and insulation need to be designed appropriately, and material
properties at the relevant environment must be considered, as they do on Mars and Venus or in vacuo.

Communications - some cogent discussion on the thread. This has been thought about a lot for Titan
balloons too. I'll remind readers that many cruise ships, and drones for that matter, use gimballed
antennas for satellite communications. Again, not trivial, but a familiar and soluble problem.

As for data - have a look at the Huygens or Pathfinder or any other mission's balance of data volume
between imaging, composition, meteorology etc. On any mission this balance gets struck somehow (and
indeed it can often be tuned during the mission)