Questions tagged [interplanetary]
Questions regarding spacecraft designed to travel between planets.
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Did the Soviet TMK crew have any chance of survival with the knowledge and technology of its era?
In response to the United States announcement of manned moon landing plans, the Soviet Union announced the TMK program. This program would have sent manned missions to Venus and Mars. The original ...
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Probing gas giant planets by descending through a cyclones's "eye"?
On Earth cyclones have regions of calm weather commonly known as eyes. They appear to create tunnels spreading from the top of the atmosphere down to the sea level. Wikipedia article mentions their ...
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How much more does it cost to produce two identically designed probes/rovers/satellites compared to making only one?
There are a number of historical planetary missions that have produced 2 flying instances. Examples include Voyager, Viking, MERS, some of the Mariners missions. Other missions have only one ...
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Why is it that harmful for astronauts and technology to get too far into Jupiter's magnetosphere? Shouldn't it rather be protective?
Jupiter's radiation belts make it impossible for astronauts to stay on Io, Europa and Ganymede over extended periods of time, as well as getting too close to Jupiter at all. I wonder how close would ...
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Are there any free return trajectories for a manned Mars flyby mission between 2018 and 2024?
I am looking for a mission profile including the delta-v for burns for an interplanetary mission to Mars. I have been unable to find any free return trajectories between 2018 and 2024, are there any?
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Why "quiet cruise" of a spacecraft would cost NASA 30 mln $ a year?
The 2022 Planetary Decadal Survey (Chapter 22) states that "quiet cruise" phase of an interplanetary spacecraft will cost about 30 million dollars a year for NASA. "Quiet cruise" ...
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History of the planetary flyby for gravitational assist; first conception, mathematical demonstration, plan, and execution?
Planetary flybys for gravitational assists are a stable of deep space missions. When did the following things happen?
First documented realization that gravitational assists in spaceflight were ...
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What is this figure I have obtained from this MATLAB code around Earth-Moon Lagrange point 2?
This is part of the code I used, where EM: Earth moon
...
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Magnetic braking for interplanetary journeys?
One proposed use for a magnetic sail is to allow an interstellar spacecraft to brake as it approaches its destination. But could a magnetic sail also slow down a spacecraft traveling between planets? ...
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What is the importance of thrust control history in low-thrust optimization?
As I have mentioned before, I am trying to optimize an Earth - Mars low-thrust transfer using a particular method. It has been mentioned to me, and I have seen it in many papers, that thrust history ...
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How can I control the departure and arrival aiming radii in an ideal interplanetary trajectory?
Suppose I am executing an interplanetary rendevous (Hohmann transfer) between two coplanar, perfectly spherical planets, each with circular orbits.
The goal is to execute a hyperbolic escape from a ...
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Future plans and advances for improved extrasolar planet imaging; has anything changed since 2019?
I have seen What is the state of the art of exosolar planet imaging in 2019? but answers there simply address the types and quality of images.
Here I'd like to ask about plans for future technology to ...
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Direction of heliocentric entry velocity for fly-by coming from interplanetary Hohmann transfer?
I'm following Curtis's equation on interplanetary transfers. I'm confused by the direction of the entry Heliocentric velocity for a fly-by.
If the assumptions is that orbits are:
Coplanar, cofocal ...
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An orbit in the corner of isosceles right-angled triangle
Is it possible to have a non-escape orbit that is equidistant to two celestial bodies (for example, Earth and Mars) at all times? If possible, how much does it cost to keep an object (which is much ...
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Interplanetary space mission debris orbits
I was wondering if anyone knew about a database of orbits for debris from previous interplanetary space missions. I am referring to debris or expired missions by NASA, ESA, JAXA, etc. I know there are ...
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Which object has been on other planet(s) or other natural bodies the most times? What if orbits count?
Following answer(s) to Which object has been to space the most times? answer, and related to Objects that have been on the Moon multiple times one.
Question: Are there any object(s) that travelled to ...
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Orbit to Orbit Transport Stage
Would it be faster or cheaper to have a lander, SSTO, and/or SpaceX Mars rocket to rendezvous connect with a more efficient engine or "transport stage" or another lander, SSTO?
When the spacecraft ...
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MATLAB optimization script for Low - Thrust trajectory
I'm trying to write a script for a 'shape based' trajectory, based on the exponential sinusoid shape, for an Earth - Mars transfer. Essentially, I know where I want to start, and I know where I want ...
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Are there any concrete plans to include chipsats for planetary suicide missions?
One of the potential uses for chipsats may be:
Chipsats, which are smaller and cheaper still, are seen as disposable sensors that could be sent on suicide missions to explore hostile environments, ...
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