Here is a link to an update on the status of the Europa Clipper mission. I wrote it as a guest on Van Kane's "Future Planetary Exploration" website. http://futureplanets.blogspot.com/2013/05/europa-clipper-update.htmlI hope that it answers some questions about the mission. QuoteHow this will turn out is difficult to gauge. This is not the first time such a struggle has occurred. For years, the Congress earmarked funds for development of a Solar Probe mission. Eventually, NASA got the message and awarded a new start for the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft. About 10 years ago, when NASA was trying to eliminate funding for the New Horizons Pluto probe, Congress specifically earmarked funding for that mission...
How this will turn out is difficult to gauge. This is not the first time such a struggle has occurred. For years, the Congress earmarked funds for development of a Solar Probe mission. Eventually, NASA got the message and awarded a new start for the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft. About 10 years ago, when NASA was trying to eliminate funding for the New Horizons Pluto probe, Congress specifically earmarked funding for that mission...
Good reference to Solar Probe. I had forgotten about that. There's a good story behind the creation of Solar Probe Plus. My limited understanding/memory is that Congress kept putting money in the budget for that but NASA kept ignoring them. NASA just did not think that they could afford Solar Probe. Finally, Alan Stern said to that community (this is almost a direct quote from a talk he gave) "Do you want 100% of nothing or 80% of something?" And he forced them to redesign Solar Probe into a mission that NASA could afford and got a new start on it.
That thing looks epic!!!Of course that's also exactly what I thought the first time I saw the design for the Parker Solar Probe - then known as "Solar Probe Plus"
Common sense would question why you would even come up with a design needing RTGs when you’re going towards the source of all Solar Power. Surely they are only needed when there isn’t enough sunlight for solar panels. Unless you’re trying to fly a design that includes everything plus the kitchen sink so to speak and think budgets are unlimited.
Wonder if there will be a follow-on mission study in the next few decadal surveys?Something more like the early Solar Probe Plus designs prior to the descoping or something similar to the current PSP design in terms of observation objectives?
Quote from: Star One on 08/23/2018 12:11 pmCommon sense would question why you would even come up with a design needing RTGs when you’re going towards the source of all Solar Power. Surely they are only needed when there isn’t enough sunlight for solar panels. Unless you’re trying to fly a design that includes everything plus the kitchen sink so to speak and think budgets are unlimited.Several of the early concepts had a Jupiter flyby like Ulysses.
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 08/23/2018 05:59 pmWonder if there will be a follow-on mission study in the next few decadal surveys?Something more like the early Solar Probe Plus designs prior to the descoping or something similar to the current PSP design in terms of observation objectives?If PSP doesn't sufficiently answer the coronal heating questions, or does so while raising a large subset of new questions, then a follow-on might be worth it. A set of solar probes that could be flown in a constellation to measure the changes in the Sun's magnetic fields, like the Van Allen belt probes do for the Earth, would be extremely facinating. And I've always wanted to see a follow-on for the STEREO probes. Maybe with 4 probes launched several months apart so we nearly always have 100% coverage of the Sun.
If PSP doesn't sufficiently answer the coronal heating questions, or does so while raising a large subset of new questions, then a follow-on might be worth it. A set of solar probes that could be flown in a constellation to measure the changes in the Sun's magnetic fields, like the Van Allen belt probes do for the Earth, would be extremely facinating.
Wouldn’t there be a place for another mission to study the Sun by flying over its poles. There has only been the Ulysses mission to study the solar poles so far as I am aware.