Maybe, ultimately, the descent stage could be something like the old Mariner bus - the basis of many different specialised landers.
Hoping for dozens of smaller, cheaper robots sent to a variety of environments. Some maybe specialized for certain tasks, a kind of common bus. Mass produce these machines, these one off production runs are so incredible expensive!Mabey put them on falcons as well.I do not see a multiBillion $ mission in the foreseeable future.
2, then 4, then 8MT. That's the roadmap, that's where we need to get to.
What kind of Mars rovers will there be after Curiosity? Will they be even larger or is Curiosity already too large and expensive to be in one piece (despite this great successful start)?
Quote from: FOXP2 on 08/08/2012 01:49 pmMRO is going on its 12 to 13 years by 2018, Odyssey will most certainly be derelict, as replacement will be essential. Heck two orbiters or even a formations of small com sats would be really nice. No need for com sats if there's nothing on the ground.
MRO is going on its 12 to 13 years by 2018, Odyssey will most certainly be derelict, as replacement will be essential. Heck two orbiters or even a formations of small com sats would be really nice.
Quote from: Kaputnik on 08/08/2012 02:04 pmQuote from: FOXP2 on 08/08/2012 01:49 pmMRO is going on its 12 to 13 years by 2018, Odyssey will most certainly be derelict, as replacement will be essential. Heck two orbiters or even a formations of small com sats would be really nice. No need for com sats if there's nothing on the ground.You could also say there's no need for anything to be on the ground if you can't get the info back to Earth.
Quote from: manboy on 08/08/2012 04:50 pmQuote from: Kaputnik on 08/08/2012 02:04 pmQuote from: FOXP2 on 08/08/2012 01:49 pmMRO is going on its 12 to 13 years by 2018, Odyssey will most certainly be derelict, as replacement will be essential. Heck two orbiters or even a formations of small com sats would be really nice. No need for com sats if there's nothing on the ground.You could also say there's no need for anything to be on the ground if you can't get the info back to Earth.All the landers can communicate directly to earth
Quote from: Jim on 08/08/2012 05:08 pmQuote from: manboy on 08/08/2012 04:50 pmQuote from: Kaputnik on 08/08/2012 02:04 pmQuote from: FOXP2 on 08/08/2012 01:49 pmMRO is going on its 12 to 13 years by 2018, Odyssey will most certainly be derelict, as replacement will be essential. Heck two orbiters or even a formations of small com sats would be really nice. No need for com sats if there's nothing on the ground.You could also say there's no need for anything to be on the ground if you can't get the info back to Earth.All the landers can communicate directly to earthThe data transfer rate is much slower that way.
Instead of another science mission, it would be awesome to see a cheaper engineering R&D mission with goals similar to SMART-1. The two candidate technologies off the top of my head to be tested would be laser comms, and some sort of ISRU payload. Anything else ?
ISRU is more interesting, but that weighs a lot: you probably would need a specialized lander. Too expensive without science.
Quote from: lbiderman on 08/08/2012 06:32 pmISRU is more interesting, but that weighs a lot: you probably would need a specialized lander. Too expensive without science. Without tech R&D missions ever undertaken the assertion of "ISRU is too heavy" is kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
I suspect it could be inexpensively built and shoe-horned into the Red Dragon drilling mission (if that happens). Along with a geophone and some small weather station stuff (and related computer(s)).
Quote from: go4mars on 08/08/2012 07:46 pmI suspect it could be inexpensively built and shoe-horned into the Red Dragon drilling mission (if that happens). Along with a geophone and some small weather station stuff (and related computer(s)). Can we see your engineering trades and your cost estimates with confidence levels?
Quote from: lbiderman on 08/08/2012 06:32 pmISRU is more interesting, but that weighs a lot: you probably would need a specialized lander. Too expensive without science. There is some discussion of this earlyish in the Red Dragon thread. Including a video of a very tiny methane rocket. I suspect it could be inexpensively built and shoe-horned into the Red Dragon drilling mission (if that happens). Along with a geophone and some small weather station stuff (and related computer(s)).
All of that can be (and has been) extensively tested on Earth. There is no need to go to Mars to do that.