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James Oberg On Mars!
In sci.space.history message , Fri, 21 Aug
2009 12:20:15, Jochem Huhmann posted: One more useful alternative to a landing would be to aerobrake into Mars orbit, explore Phobos and maybe have some pre-landed rovers on Mars with near realtime control. Directly after the aerobraking, the vehicle is in an orbit with low point in Mars' atmosphere and is in possession of some no-longer-needed heat shield (I assume a smaller, new, shield for Earth re-entry). Those remains of a shield which was sufficient to brake a manned mission coming in from infinity into a fairly low orbit should be enough, on its next pass, to brake a useful probe for Mars entry. -- (c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Turnpike v6.05 MIME. Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links; Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc. No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News. |
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James Oberg On Mars!
Dr J R Stockton writes:
In sci.space.history message , Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:20:15, Jochem Huhmann posted: One more useful alternative to a landing would be to aerobrake into Mars orbit, explore Phobos and maybe have some pre-landed rovers on Mars with near realtime control. Directly after the aerobraking, the vehicle is in an orbit with low point in Mars' atmosphere and is in possession of some no-longer-needed heat shield (I assume a smaller, new, shield for Earth re-entry). Those remains of a shield which was sufficient to brake a manned mission coming in from infinity into a fairly low orbit should be enough, on its next pass, to brake a useful probe for Mars entry. You don't need a dedicated heat shield to brake into Mars orbit. MRO has no such thing either. Of course the craft needs to be designed for that, but this a very different thing to a landing. It also cuts a fair bit of the most expensive and dangerous parts (entry, descent, landing, surface stay, takeoff) out of the mission while still proving a large part of a manned Mars mission and getting some useful work done. At least as a first step towards a later surface mission this would be a very sane thing to do first. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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