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If you're not spaced out, the second day of the Planetary Mission Concept Studies ( #PMCS) workshop is getting started. Should finish right before the launch.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/pmcs2020/format/
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/pmcs2020/format/
Julie Castillo-Rogez on Assessing Dwarf Planet Ceres’ Past and Present Habitability Potential
Trade between a static lander with sample return or mobile lander
Trade between a static lander with sample return or mobile lander
Landing site
Stawman payload
Using SEP, 14 km/s total electric delta V. Using Falcon Heavy with recovery.
This is really cool. Sample Return Vehicle with solar arrays stowed.
Cruise configuration
Solar arrays stowed during landing and ascent on Ceres
Summary slide
Next, Shannon MacKenzie with Enceladus Orbilander
Much like Ceres, one spacecraft, two modes. 2 RTGs
Both active and passive sample collection
Spend 1.5 years in orbit
Can do all but one of life-sensing measurements from orbit with passive sampling
Spend 150 days doing analysis on the surface
Summary. Haven't really talked about how it's going to get out there yet...
Next, Carolyn Ernst with Mercury Lander
SEP to get there, chemical landing
Land in intercrater plains
Trajectory very similar to BepiColombo
Full spacecraft. Note RTG...
Lander. Designed to operate for one Mercury year, producing ~10.8 GB of data. Most operations in night, dies after dawn.
Next, @CarlyHowett on Persephone Pluto Orbiter
Overview. Yep, SLS Block 2 and five RTGs and lots of xenon. Its hard to get there.
KBO flyby *before* Pluto orbit, unlike New Horizons
Instruments. All based on flown instruments, but modified to optimize science.
Baseline spacecraft. The big yellow thing the giant xenon tank.
Much bigger than New Horizons
Launch windows. Jupiter flyby doesn't help after 2032.
Trajectory. 27.3 years to Pluto, burning xenon most of the way.
Flying past a KBO adds about one year to the flight time, and we should be able to find one about twice the size of Arrokoth.
Nominal 3 year orbit tour, allow the spacecraft to image the entire surfaces of Pluto and Charon, and do flybys of the small sats. (Huge props to the APL crew for designing a great tour!)
The WAC is the low-light camera, allowing the spacecraft to map the winter night pole.
Would have to carry 250 kg extra xenon to do a post-Pluto flyby
The larger the post-Pluto target, the longer it takes to get there
Trajectory Summary
It ain't cheap (~$3 billion + launch vehicle), but it closed.
Finally, Martha Gilmore on a Venus Flagship
Study approach
Orbiter, 2 subsatellites, 7-day lander, 60+ day balloon, AND experimental long-lived lander. A true Venus fleet.
Balloon science
Everything launched on a single Falcon heavy
Timeline. In orbit for 1.5 years before deploying lander.
Landing sites
Need better slope knowledge of the tesserae
The lander
The aerobot balloon
The orbiter
The plasma smallsats
The communications; the smallsats can act as relays
And that's it. What a great set of concepts. The Decadal is going to face some hard choices to prioritize.
