February 27th 07, 02:16 AM
posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
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'Dawn' asteroid probe -- highest power ever?
kT wrote:
Bill Bonde wrote:
Brad Guth wrote:
"Jim Oberg" wrote in message
The 'Dawn' asteroid mission (June launch) has a 10 kilowatt electrical power
system --
is that the highest power level ever for an interplanetary probe?
Cassini: 750 watts
Galileo: 500 watts
Deep Space 1: 2.4 kilowatts
And exactly how much birth to grave (including yourself) is that mission
costing us?
I'd chip in a tener to send you to Venus.
Oh look, it's some conservative humor. What did you guys do, hire some
liberal comedy consultants? I think the baseline mission is under $500
million, but the extended mission could get costly if these things are
as robust as the Mars Rovers. And they should be. I just read they made
a fundamental efficiency improvement to the Xenon ion thruster design,
variable thrust or some such thing. We need more of these things, not
only do we need to identify everything down to the 100 meter level or
so, we've got hundreds of larger ones to visit. What we really need to
do is fast track a Ceres Reconnaissance Orbiter as a follow up to this
mission, and maybe try to get to Pallas too. Some amazing things are out
there just waiting to be found. It's a nearby fifth planet that we know
very little about.
"Conservative humor" is an oxymoron.
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