Jupiter/Saturn Mission Concepts

[ISProgram]

Well, the radiation environment at Ganymede is relatively benign compared to all the other Galilean moons, and it's only 1,070,000 km from Jupiter. So I would say yes. :thumbup:

 

[Pipcard]

There's a NASA concept mission called "Human Outer Planet Exploration" (HOPE) to send astronauts to Callisto, which receives the least radiation (0.01 rem/day compared to 540 rem/day on Europa) for a Galilean moon.

 

[K_Jameson]

Well, the radiation environment at Ganymede is relatively benign compared to all the other Galilean moons, and it's only 1,070,000 km from Jupiter. So I would say yes. :thumbup:

Ganymede is still a bit too close to Jupiter: the radiation dosage, while not a big problem for a robotic spacecraft at that distance from the planet, can give serious concerns for human health: radiation poisoning is virtually assured (at Europa the radiations are already far beyond lethal dose; at Io are simply INFERNAL). Callisto is a much more comfortable place for a human spedition to Jupiter, because is completely outside the radiation belts.

 

[TMac3000]

Thanks!

I've started meshing out a preliminary design for MINOTAUR in Blender, and I'm gonna look into some slingshot planning today

---------- Post added at 09:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:54 AM ----------

Early concept for MINOTAUR
Still needs docking ports, solar panels (until she's past the asteroid belt), etc.

 

[K_Jameson]

Regarding the radiations, the main problem is not Saturn, but the Sun and the GCR (Galactic Cosmic Rays). On Starlab, conceived as interplanetary hab prototype for a Earth-Mars trip, I was forced to include a water-based shield. Mars One site states that 40 cm of layer are sufficient for shielding against solar flares; for Starlab I provided 50 cm, for a total weight of 50 tons, protecting a specific area, the "Shelter" or "sleep module", 49 cubic meters of pressurized volume.

And still, we have virtually no protection against galactic cosmic rays. For a long trip to Iapetus, with the current tecnology, IMHO the dosage can be really dangerous with virtually assured long terms effects on the crew. Also, Iapetus has no atmosphere, so even during the stay the astronauts will be subjected to a similar bombardment, with the addition of a secondary cosmic ray shower caused by the impact of the primary rays on the surface (a subsurface outpost can greatly help).

 

[dgatsoulis]

Early concept for MINOTAUR
Still needs docking ports, solar panels (until she's past the asteroid belt), etc.

Looking good. :thumbup:
I'd leave out the solar panels completely and add an inflatable heatshield. After all, you need to aerobrake at Titan.

Here are a couple of trajectories for the manned mission. First a "slow" one:

Departure MJD: 58,131.0
Arrival MJD: 60,034.0
TJI: 6,478.0 m/s
Jup enc: -171.4 m/s
Titan Aero: 2,645.0 m/s
Iapetus enc: 762.8 m/s
IOI: 834.1 m/s
Time of Flight: 1,903.0 m/s
Total DV: 8,246.3 m/s
Post Inj DV: 1,768.3 m/s

Arrival at Iapetus 1903 days after TJI and post-injection delta-v is ~1.8 km/s.
The Saturn aerocapture at Titan's atmosphere is pretty small, "only" 2.65 km/s.

Here is the scenario with the TransX plan:

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Contains the latest simulation state.
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  Date MJD 57103.0911962274
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2000_SG344:DeltaGlider
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END_SHIPS

BEGIN_ExtMFD
END

The second trajectory is the fast one:

Departure MJD: 58134.0
Arrival MJD: 59379.0
TJI: 7,027.0 m/s
Jup enc: 324.5 m/s
Titan Aero: 8,777.0 m/s
Iapetus enc: 570.0 m/s
IOI: 1,424.0 m/s
Time of Flight: 1,245.0 days
Total DV: 9,345.5 m/s
Post Inj DV : 2,318.5 m/s

Almost 0.6 km/s higher injection delta-v, 2.32 km/s post-injection and a hard dive inside Titan's atmosphere to lose ~8.8 km/s. Saves 1.8 years in flight-time.

BEGIN_DESC
Contains the latest simulation state.
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I'll look for an other one, somewhere in the middle of these two (flight-time ~1500-1600 days). Also need to work out the return, so that we can get an idea of the consumables.

 

[TMac3000]

These look awesome!:thumbup: I'm definitely leaning toward your first plan
So we're aerobraking at Titan to lose our interplanetary velocity?

Then we could do a Hohmann maneuver from Titan to Iapetus, right?

 

[dgatsoulis]

Yes, dive inside Titan's atmosphere (Stage 6 of the plan) to get in an elliptical orbit around Saturn (Stage 7).

At the apoapsis of that elliptical trajectory, perform a maneuver (also Stage 7) to get to a slow encounter with Iapetus.
A direct Hohmann would be great, but the timing is extremely tricky. That's ok though, the dv from the apoapsis maneuver to the Iapetus Orbit insertion is roughly constant. (small maneuver→high velocity encounter / big maneuver→low velocity encounter).

I worked out a "in-the-middle" plan, with a travel time of ~1500 days. The aerocapture is pretty serious (need to lose ~5.2 km/s) but not as crazy as the fast plan.

Departure MJD: 58,132.9
Arrival MJD: 59,629.5
TJI: 6,707.0 m/s
Jup enc: 187.9 m/s
Titan Aero: 5,215.0 m/s
Iapetus enc: 848.3 m/s
IOI: 522.1 m/s
Time of Flight: 1,496.6 days
Total DV: 8,265.3 m/s
Post Inj DV: 1,558.3 m/s

Saves ~13.5 months from the slow plan, with a serious (but IMO doable) dive in Titan's atmo and with pretty much the same total delta-v.

Here is the scenario:

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  TYPE User
  MODE TransX
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BEGIN_SHIPS
GL-01:DeltaGlider
  STATUS Orbiting Earth
  RPOS 3177200.67 -243174.74 5744316.43
  RVEL -6814.875 218.164 3773.735
  AROT -73.20 -31.34 102.81
  VROT 0.00 0.03 0.05
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  XPDR 0
  GEAR 1 1.0000
  SKIN RUSTY
  AAP 0:0 0:0 0:0
END
2000_SG344:DeltaGlider
  STATUS Orbiting Sun
  RPOS 8322321885.05 -253155762.10 138886919317.01
  RVEL -31764.995 -7.425 1072.481
  AROT -0.00 -0.00 0.00
  AFCMODE 7
  PRPLEVEL 0:1.000000 1:1.000000
  NAVFREQ 402 94 0 0
  XPDR 0
  GEAR 1 1.0000
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BEGIN_ExtMFD
END

I'll post the return to Earth in a little while.

---------- Post added at 22:06 ---------- Previous post was at 20:37 ----------

Turns out the return is pretty simple. A single burn from low Iapetus orbit of ~3.8 km/s gets you to Earth in ~1970 days. Jupiter is not in a favorable position for a slingshot, so it's a Hohmann to Earth. The stay at Iapetus (if you choose the 1500 day transfer) is 142.5 days long (or can be cut by one Iapetus orbit around Saturn ~79 days) and the arrival at Earth has a relative velocity of 11.03 km/s, meaning 15.86 km/s at a periapsis altitude of 70 km.

So let's look at the totals:

DV = 12.1 km/s, 5.4 of which are after the TJI burn.

Time of flight = 1497 + 142.5 + 1970 = 3609.5 days (9.88 years)

Consumables for 4 crew:

Volume visualization:

 

[TMac3000]

Man, this is great stuff! That Titan aerobrake is going to be fun:thumbup:
So, taking a look at the design picture I posted, and considering the consumable volumes in the pic you posted, does this require any design changes?

In Peter Hyams's "2010" movie, the Leonov used a sort of balloon as a heat shield for her Jupiter aerobrake. With the MINOTAUR's "pig's head-style" CM, I could store that in the "snout", maybe right above the docking port Yes? But what sort of material would this require?

I promise I'll get around to trying those scenarios--but I'm running Orbiter in Linux, and I ed my WINE prefix trying to install Empire Deluxe a couple weeks ago. So Orbiter is kind of wigging out right now.

But I should be able to get around to it no later than next weekend. Thanks!

 

[dgatsoulis]

The Leonov in the movie looked pretty cool, but lacked the practicallity or semi-realistic feeling of the Discovery. Not to mention that it did NOT look like it was a Soviet design.

The "real" Leonov by artists Rob Caswell (Arcas-Art) and Tom Peters (Drell-7) is a much better design IMO. The thing that I'do differently is the heatshield, using a low density inflatable one.

 

[TMac3000]

Mesh progress for MINOTAUR

Quarter-view

Side view

Current design features:
1) The hab and storage modules spin at 1g. At 12 m in diamater and 5 m deep, the hab module has, if I did the calcs correctly, the equivalent living space of a 2000-square-foot home with a ten foot ceiling. This should easily provide all the space needed for a group of four to eat, sleep, work, exercise, and eliminate waste, for 10 years.

2) The water and liquid-atmosphere tanks are layered, with struts inside. The O2 and N2 tanks surround the water tanks.

3) The lander can only be reached by EVA because there is no space for humans aft of the stores module--only tankage and machinery. I may move it to the docking port at the "snout".

4) The snout contains the forward docking port, and an opening for deploying a "ballute" type heat shield like the Leonov.

And the beauty of this is, the whole thing is only about 20 m long and 10 m high. That's about the size of a large fighter jet!

I live and die by feedback

 

[K_Jameson]

Have you calculated the spin rate for generating 1g? If the spin rate is too high, can generate problems, IMHO.

I tried a quick'n'dirty calculation in this site. For a six meter radius and 1g required, the resultant rotation rate is 12,2 rotations/minute, or one every 5 seconds... an high rotation rate with negative effects on the crew... I can suggest to impose a more relaxed gravity requirement? With 5 rotations/minute we have 0.16 g... comparable to lunar values.
Even lower rotation rates are suggested.

 

[TMac3000]

For 6 meters and .16g, I get a "yellow zone" angular velocity (it would work, but my guys are not going to like it), and not enough tangential velocity. If we double this to .32--about like Mercury--the situation gets even worse.

I got all green lights by having 0.3g, 14 m/s tangential velocity, and 2 rpms. But then my hab section will be 140 meters wide!:lol:

The best I can seem to do so far with 6 meters is 6 rpms. This gives a quarter of a g, but that tangential velocity is going to take some serious training to get used to.

 

[francisdrake]

This is an interesting project! Please be easy on my comments

On the ship design: It is tempting to create a ship from large spinning cylinders. There are two issues to this: Transport and mechanical strength.
It is difficult to lift a large disc into orbit. And a large disc with internal pressure needs big domes as top and bottom, not flat plates.

Just as an idea, below is a sketch of a vessel keeping the overall dimensions of the Minotaur (minus some living space), built from ISS-sized modules, with the ship spinning around its longitudinal axis to create gravity. (All issues with short spinning arms still apply.)

Other comments: The lander could fly under remote control to the front docking port, when it's time to board it.

I would rather have the reactor farther away (on a boom) to reduce radiation exposure of the crew, like in the HOPE designs.

When flying on a 9 years expedition some redundancy might be good, like two independent drives, etc. to reduce the overall risk.

 

[TMac3000]

On the ship design: It is tempting to create a ship from large spinning cylinders. There are two issues to this: Transport and mechanical strength.

The hab is the only part that spins--like the gravity wheel on the Arrow. The other parts are cylindrical just for symmetry (except the engine). The crew walks along the circumference of the cylinder. The vertical side (the "walls") would have ladders. And the spin would be stopped when in orbit.

It is difficult to lift a large disc into orbit.

The disc would have to be sent up in four or eight pieces. I actually calculated the size already. With those dimensions, to send it up in fourths would require a rocket with a 9-meter fairing. I think that's too big for a Jarvis or a Themis. But sending it up in eight pieces, either of those could definitely fit at least one piece, and I might be able to finish it in four launches.

Just as an idea, below is a sketch of a vessel keeping the overall dimensions of the Minotaur (minus some living space), built from ISS-sized modules, with the ship spinning around its longitudinal axis to create gravity. (All issues with short spinning arms still apply.)

That looks really cool It kind of reminds me of the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus"]Daedelus[/ame]

Other comments: The lander could fly under remote control to the front docking port, when it's time to board it.

This a good idea. I was considering moving the lander to the nose port, but then it would be a little more difficult to enter the ship.

I would rather have the reactor farther away (on a boom) to reduce radiation exposure of the crew, like in the HOPE designs.

Entirely understandable:yes: The engine is currently 9 meters away from the hab. If I add another 3 meters of depth to the propellant tank, this would reduce the danger of radiation AND give us more dv

When flying on a 9 years expedition some redundancy might be good, like two independent drives, etc. to reduce the overall risk.

Hmmm...seems sensible at first, but a redundant engine would mean more mass

 

[TMac3000]

Here are my engineering calcs for the hab disk so far:
Density of aluminum=2.7 kg/m^3
Volume of hab: 12 m diameter (6 m radius) x 5 m = 565.49 m^3

Now, if we make the walls 10 cm thick, we get an inside diameter of 11.8 m and an inside depth of 4.8 m, so:
11.8 m ( 5.9 m radius) x 4.8 m = 524.92 m^3

565.49-524.92=40.57 m^3 of aluminum for the outer hull of the disk. Density of aluminum is 2.7 kg/m^3. This gives 109.539 kilograms for the whole disk.

Dude.

That can't be right:blink:

 

[dgatsoulis]

Density of aluminum is 2.7 kg/m^3. This gives 109.539 kilograms for the whole disk.

Dude.

That can't be right:blink:

Of course it isn't. Aluminum density is 2.712 metric tonnes/m^3 = 2712 kg/m^3.

Source: Metals and Alloys - Densities

 

[TMac3000]

Damn. The website I used had the decimal point in the wrong place:facepalm:
Anyway, that makes 110 mT for the disk. This could be pretty easily lofted in quarters using four launches of a Falcon Heavy or a Themis ETS.

BUT...only if either has a 9 meter fairing...

Quasar is currently under consideration, but that seems a bit overkillish.

 

[Loru]

Damn. The website I used had the decimal point in the wrong place:facepalm:
Anyway, that makes 110 mT for the disk. This could be pretty easily lofted in quarters using four launches of a Falcon Heavy or a Themis ETS.

BUT...only if either has a 9 meter fairing...

Quasar is currently under consideration, but that seems a bit overkillish.

HCLV-4 may be considered - for example sidemount with custom payload fairing. ~120mT to LEO.

 

[orb]

Damn. The website I used had the decimal point in the wrong place:facepalm:

If the website was using comma as decimal (fraction) separator, dot could be used to separate thousands (I hate when numbers use thousands separators, at least other than a non-breaking space).