Saturn Ring Sample Return Mission?

A planetary probe should be able to fly in and sample Saturn's ring material
and analysis it and/or return a sample to Earth. The relative velocity
between the probe and ring material would be almost zero if the probe is
in-plane near circular.

Has anyone proposed or is working on a Saturn Ring Sample mission?
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

On Apr 9, 12:21UTF16-FFFDam, Craig Fink wrote:
A planetary probe should be able to fly in and sample Saturn's ring material
and analysis it and/or return a sample to Earth. The relative velocity
between the probe and ring material would be almost zero if the probe is
in-plane near circular.

Has anyone proposed or is working on a Saturn Ring Sample mission?
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

nope all the money goes to shuttle and shuttle replacement, science
has little priority and even less money

wrote:

On Apr 9, 12:21UTF16-FFFDam, Craig Fink wrote:
A planetary probe should be able to fly in and sample Saturn's ring
material and analysis it and/or return a sample to Earth. The relative
velocity between the probe and ring material would be almost zero if the
probe is in-plane near circular.

Has anyone proposed or is working on a Saturn Ring Sample mission?
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

nope all the money goes to shuttle and shuttle replacement, science
has little priority and even less money

Shuttle? what money?

I was talking about returning part of Saturn's rings to Earth to study and
sell. Cosmic SnowFlakes, StarDust, very small asteroids, that type of
thing. All the interesting things that collect in the rings.

--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

On Apr 8, 10:21 pm, Craig Fink wrote:
A planetary probe should be able to fly in and sample Saturn's ring material
and analysis it and/or return a sample to Earth. The relative velocity
between the probe and ring material would be almost zero if the probe is
in-plane near circular.

Has anyone proposed or is working on a Saturn Ring Sample mission?
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

That's an interesting thought. It's hard to believe no one has ever
considered it, but I try to be well-read on space science, and I've
never heard of a proposal to do that. Possibly it's felt that fly-bys
have analyzed it sufficiently.
Matt Bille

"Matt" wrote in message
...
On Apr 8, 10:21 pm, Craig Fink wrote:
Has anyone proposed or is working on a Saturn Ring Sample mission?

That's an interesting thought. It's hard to believe no one has ever
considered it, but I try to be well-read on space science, and I've
never heard of a proposal to do that. Possibly it's felt that fly-bys
have analyzed it sufficiently.

My guess is that the delta-V and mass requirements necessary for such a
mission are a bit beyond the state of the art for a single launch.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein


..

On Apr 8, 10:21 pm, Craig Fink wrote:
A planetary probe should be able to fly in and sample Saturn's ring
material and analysis it and/or return a sample to Earth. The relative
velocity between the probe and ring material would be almost zero if the
probe is in-plane near circular.

Has anyone proposed or is working on a Saturn Ring Sample mission?

Matt wrote:

That's an interesting thought. It's hard to believe no one has ever
considered it, but I try to be well-read on space science, and I've
never heard of a proposal to do that. Possibly it's felt that fly-bys
have analyzed it sufficiently.

I haven't heard of it either.

It's tough to focus a microscope as the probe flys by. I imagine the Rings
would collect a lot of interesting stuff in them.

--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

In article ,
Craig Fink wrote:
A planetary probe should be able to fly in and sample Saturn's ring material
and analysis it and/or return a sample to Earth. The relative velocity
between the probe and ring material would be almost zero if the probe is
in-plane near circular.

Has anyone proposed or is working on a Saturn Ring Sample mission?

Assuming you had a big enough and complex enough vehicle
you could get to the neighborhood of Saturn and get the
vehicle into the same orbit as ring particles, getting the
piece of the ring particle might not be too difficult.

But it would have to be analyzed there. Returning it
to Earth in usable shape might be difficult for many
reasons, one of them being that the current estimate
of what the ring particles are come up with some sort
of water-ammonia ice, and even returning an empty
probe requires more energy than will be available.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

Herman Rubin wrote:

But it would have to be analyzed there. Returning it
to Earth in usable shape might be difficult for many
reasons, one of them being that the current estimate
of what the ring particles are come up with some sort
of water-ammonia ice, and even returning an empty
probe requires more energy than will be available.


Ideally, once the probe was in Saturn orbit near the rings, it would
start from the outer edge and slowly work inwards to the inner edge,
sampling and analyzing the ring material in multiple places as it moved,
so that a detailed model of ring composition could be built up.
Photography from inside the rings would really be something to see.

Pat

In article ,
Craig Fink wrote:
A planetary probe should be able to fly in and sample Saturn's ring
material and analysis it and/or return a sample to Earth. The relative
velocity between the probe and ring material would be almost zero if the
probe is in-plane near circular.

Has anyone proposed or is working on a Saturn Ring Sample mission?


Herman Rubin wrote:

Assuming you had a big enough and complex enough vehicle
you could get to the neighborhood of Saturn and get the
vehicle into the same orbit as ring particles, getting the
piece of the ring particle might not be too difficult.

But it would have to be analyzed there. Returning it
to Earth in usable shape might be difficult for many
reasons, one of them being that the current estimate
of what the ring particles are come up with some sort
of water-ammonia ice, and even returning an empty
probe requires more energy than will be available.

An Aerobrake using Saturn's atmosphere to start the journey at the bottom
ring, a reasonable L/D could supply the plane change. And it could be used
at Earth with the returning samples...

Water-ammonia is an acceptable in-situ propellent for the return trip...

I would think the list of cool Objects in the Rings would be quite large,
not to mention the possibility to Orbit and study all the in-plane Moons
while the return vehicle climbs out of Saturn's gravity well. Energy
wouldn't be a problem with nuclear power, and Solar Cells would not be a
bright idea...
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

Craig Fink wrote:
In article ,
Craig Fink wrote:

A planetary probe should be able to fly in and sample Saturn's ring
material and analysis it and/or return a sample to Earth. The relative
velocity between the probe and ring material would be almost zero if the
probe is in-plane near circular.

Has anyone proposed or is working on a Saturn Ring Sample mission?


Herman Rubin wrote:


Assuming you had a big enough and complex enough vehicle
you could get to the neighborhood of Saturn and get the
vehicle into the same orbit as ring particles, getting the
piece of the ring particle might not be too difficult.

But it would have to be analyzed there. Returning it
to Earth in usable shape might be difficult for many
reasons, one of them being that the current estimate
of what the ring particles are come up with some sort
of water-ammonia ice, and even returning an empty
probe requires more energy than will be available.


An Aerobrake using Saturn's atmosphere to start the journey at the bottom
ring, a reasonable L/D could supply the plane change. And it could be used
at Earth with the returning samples...

Aerobraking at Saturn is a challenge. We are talking speeds greater than
35 km/s here. If you want to complicate this with a plane change using
aerodynamic lift then I think your heat shield is in sci-fi territory.
You might be able to do it with multiple passes where each orbital dip
in the atmosphere only takes away a little velocity and only changes the
plane a little. But that would take a lot of time (years) and would still
be technically challenging.


Alain Fournier