I'm guessing that a cut down fly by mission from the ones in the already posted presentations are what is being considered?
It just means the probe doesn't stay at the one moon.
Obviously doing it like this takes a lot longer to image the full surface
The multiple passes of the flyby won't give anything like as good coverage at high resolutions; check out the ground tracks (pg. 17 of the "Mission Studies") and the Topographic Imager coverage chart (next page).
They may not have the money, but perhaps it could generate enough interest outside the science community (and in the political arena) to find funding in a gov't/private partnership (doubt that would happen, but you never know).
Quote from: robertross on 09/25/2012 12:26 amThey may not have the money, but perhaps it could generate enough interest outside the science community (and in the political arena) to find funding in a gov't/private partnership (doubt that would happen, but you never know).No. Impossible. Price tag is $2 billion. Nobody foots serious cash for stuff that they assume the government should fund. This is going to be the big problem for B612 and their asteroid search spacecraft.
With that kind of price tag no one is going to fund this anytime soon are they?
Here is the rest of the presentation.
Using SLS: 6 years to 2.8 years!! Wish it was affordable (but nowhere near holding my breathe...maybe pre-breathing) Really like the nanosat concept tied to it.