Obviously, a whole new probe will need to be sent, right? Not really. A smaller, lower mass package with the appropriate hardware upgrades, additional fuel, and a lander, would be sent on a high speed, robotic VASMIR tug. Upon arrival, the probe will be shut down, instrunment packages would be either swapped out, repositioned or reconfigured, as needed, fuel would be transfered either via direct transfer or modularly replacing the fuel tank, and as the probe is placed into programming mode, firmware and software would be updated and tested, before the robotic tug would disconnect, use a gravity assist, and burn plasma either back to Earth, or to a staging area where the hardware removed from this probe can be tested, reprogrammed, and sent to another probe, or more, that needs the cross grade to be ready to accomplish its' new mission. Back at Saturn, the probe, its new systems, software, and attached lander, are reactivated and perform a burn to change to Titan's orbit, and it launches the lander as the probe approaches to begin orbiting and observing Titan and communicating with the lander. The point here, instead of creating a whole new probe, one that had been configured with enough capacity to do so was both repurposed and reconfigured, onsite, for far lower than it would cost to build and send a whole new probe with lander to Saturn and Titan. In the meantime, instead of disposing of the equipment gathered from the Saturn probe, it is tested, stored and will be reused on another probe as needed. When a probe's mission is completed, if a new mission hasn't been assigned, the probe is moved into a either a high orbit around a planet, (if exploring one) is put in a sleep mode with a low powered monitoring modeto allow its' reactivation from Earth at a later time, or retreival for cannibalization or repurposing for a different mission, or it could be placed into a solar parking orbit, again, awaiting reconfiguring and a new mission. This statagy reduces launch costs by reducing launches to only the equiipment needed to restore and reconfigure probes already in use, or that have reached mission's end with the ability to continue with other missions. This is simply an upgrade of the system used for the Hubble telescope, while minimizing the risks to humans, and reusing onsite hardware as much as possible and practicle. However, it does require that equipment be designed to be even more robust than it already is. But even with slight increases in mass, this should be well within the technical abilities already demonstrated. I mean, two rovers on Mars, designed for ninty day use lasting FIVE YEARS? Not too shabby at all...Any thoughts on this?Jason
The thing to remember here is that many of the high cost items aren't recyclable. You can't recycling electronics, solar cells, and thermoelectric couples, for example. Those have a finite lifespan due to the adverse affects of radiation. And once they stop working, they're pretty much deadweight (until you get the industrial infrastructure in place to melt them down and make something new of them).So what bothers me here is that most of what's getting recycled doesn't seem that valuable (aside from just being mass in space). For a perhaps bad analogy, it seems like recycling the paint on an aluminum can, but not the aluminum.
The thing to remember here is that many of the high cost items aren't recyclable....
It is also what the robotic lunar colony idea is about. If you are not just doing space science but actually aiming to learn how to do industrial tasks there then reuse is what it is all about.Science isnt good for reuse because you generally do not want to do the same thing twice. Even visiting the same location twice would probably be totally unacceptable at current numbers of missions. Now if a rover stumbled across what looked like a trilobite fossil on mars..
This is an essential reason why NASA never will be involved in space colonization...
The idea isn't viable for unmanned probes, definitely.I've thought of doing it for manned mission hardware, though... I imagine a large RTG powerplant left behind from a manned mission to Mars (or the Moon) could produce useful power for generations. If the mobile-hab concept is used, potentially it may become a viable scenario in case of equipment failure at some mission base to drive over to another, old base a thousand kilometers away. With people available, you could do all the kinds of jury rigging that people are known for. Make sure to include a soldering iron, solder, hot glue gun (or something equivalent), duct tape, kapton tape, zip ties (they make stainless steel ones), space-stable grease, medical tubing (space-rated, if possible), space blankets, epoxy, plastic bags, maps, and plenty of flight manuals. You could probably fit that in a shoe box.
Another useful tool to bring would be a heat gun or even a hot air rework station.Plus bring a box of rad-hardened FPGA chips,micro controllers and photo resist PCBs or proto boards.A universal microcontroller controller like the popular ardunio but based around a rad hardened part could be indispensable.Have both 8bit and 32bit devices on hand.On a Mars mission also bring a rapid prototyping machine even they even have ones that can produce metal parts.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_laser_sintering
The same type instruments in a different location could produce useful science. Not really reuse of hardware but reuse of lets say a proven design such as the MER rovers could save a lot of money.
A universal microcontroller controller like the popular ardunio [Arduino]...
Quote from: JasonAW3 on 09/09/2010 08:54 am Obviously, a whole new probe will need to be sent, right? Not really. A smaller, lower mass package with the appropriate hardware upgrades, additional fuel, and a lander, would be sent on a high speed, robotic VASMIR tug. Upon arrival, the probe will be shut down, instrunment packages would be either swapped out, repositioned or reconfigured, as needed, fuel would be transfered either via direct transfer or modularly replacing the fuel tank, and as the probe is placed into programming mode, firmware and software would be updated and tested, before the robotic tug would disconnect, use a gravity assist, and burn plasma either back to Earth, or to a staging area where the hardware removed from this probe can be tested, reprogrammed, and sent to another probe, or more, that needs the cross grade to be ready to accomplish its' new mission. Back at Saturn, the probe, its new systems, software, and attached lander, are reactivated and perform a burn to change to Titan's orbit, and it launches the lander as the probe approaches to begin orbiting and observing Titan and communicating with the lander. The point here, instead of creating a whole new probe, one that had been configured with enough capacity to do so was both repurposed and reconfigured, onsite, for far lower than it would cost to build and send a whole new probe with lander to Saturn and Titan. In the meantime, instead of disposing of the equipment gathered from the Saturn probe, it is tested, stored and will be reused on another probe as needed. When a probe's mission is completed, if a new mission hasn't been assigned, the probe is moved into a either a high orbit around a planet, (if exploring one) is put in a sleep mode with a low powered monitoring modeto allow its' reactivation from Earth at a later time, or retreival for cannibalization or repurposing for a different mission, or it could be placed into a solar parking orbit, again, awaiting reconfiguring and a new mission. This statagy reduces launch costs by reducing launches to only the equiipment needed to restore and reconfigure probes already in use, or that have reached mission's end with the ability to continue with other missions. This is simply an upgrade of the system used for the Hubble telescope, while minimizing the risks to humans, and reusing onsite hardware as much as possible and practicle. However, it does require that equipment be designed to be even more robust than it already is. But even with slight increases in mass, this should be well within the technical abilities already demonstrated. I mean, two rovers on Mars, designed for ninty day use lasting FIVE YEARS? Not too shabby at all...Any thoughts on this?JasonNot viable. A new probe would be cheaper. The rendezvous, docking and robotics equipment (and propellant) would outweigh any perceived savings. Eliminate these and replace with instruments.
Rather than sending out a spacecraft to deliver new parts to another spacecraft, I think a better idea would be to send out modular spacecraft with ion/VASIMR propulsion, do your science for a few years, and then launch on a low energy trajectory back to EML1/2, where either robots or astronauts could swap out instruments, RTGs, engines, piggyback probes, etc..., and fill up the tanks with propellant for the next mission. You could even have it return samples this way.This might be a tedious approach for exploring as far away as Saturn, but the inner solar system would do well to have a small fleet of reusable multipurpose probes.
Quote from: Sparky on 09/09/2010 05:22 pmRather than sending out a spacecraft to deliver new parts to another spacecraft, I think a better idea would be to send out modular spacecraft with ion/VASIMR propulsion, do your science for a few years, and then launch on a low energy trajectory back to EML1/2, where either robots or astronauts could swap out instruments, RTGs, engines, piggyback probes, etc..., and fill up the tanks with propellant for the next mission. You could even have it return samples this way.This might be a tedious approach for exploring as far away as Saturn, but the inner solar system would do well to have a small fleet of reusable multipurpose probes.Essentuially this is quite similar to the same point I am trying to make.