Questions tagged [planning]
Questions about the planning of space missions or events and observations during a space mission.
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Effects of reaction wheels desaturation on satellite planning
I'm quite new to the space sector and I'm wondering how the desaturation of the reaction wheels can affect the current plan of a satellite.
I'll try to be more clear: what does it happen to the ...
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JWST - image acquisition - what is a dither pattern?
While perusing one of the sample science programs for the JWST (NIRCam WFSS Deep Galaxy Observations), I came across Step 5, “Decide on dither pattern.”
Instead of guessing — or worse, assuming — what ...
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Why is 90 sols a standard mission duration for robotic spacecraft on the surface of Mars?
Several robotic Mars surface missions have a planned mission duration of 90 sols.
I would like to understand why this specific mission lifetime is commonly used by mission planners.
Below is a non-...
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What were the challenges of an exploration mission to Trojan asteroids?
There are many space probes that flew past asteroids, some came close to it, some orbited and some landed on it and took samples but those asteroids belonged in the main belt. Now, Lucy will become ...
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How does NASA build acclimatisation into mission plans for astronauts?
I was reading an article today where NASA admits some level of culpability contributing to a crew issue on SkyLab in 1973.
Nasa accepts that mission planners had not given the crew the typical period ...
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Has space weather ever impacted spacecraft launch schedules?
Has space weather ever affected spacecraft launches, and do launch providers check it before spacecraft go to space?
I know there is space turbulence and it can influence a spacecraft underway, but ...
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Did the Space Shuttle crew have to worry about the ionosphere? What relevant training or specific briefings did they receive?
Comments below this answer tell us that the Space Shuttle always remained in Earth's atmosphere. When it visited the Hubble Space Telescope or the ISS or Mir it was still in the thermosphere and ...
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How was each Space Shuttle contingency rescue missions numbered?
Reading the wikipedia article on STS-3xx, I noticed that the numbering does not seem consistent.
Space Shuttle contingency rescue missions were all numbered in the 300s with the exception of STS-400, ...
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Were any other Space Shuttles ever planned?
At one point in Carl Sagan's novel Contact (1985), set c. 1999, the main character hitches a ride into space on a space shuttle:
The President clearly was in favor of her visit [to a private space ...
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Duration of SpaceX Demo-2 mission
I've read that the duration of the current SpaceX demo mission to the ISS and back is highly variable. It was originally estimated they could be on-board the ISS from 1 to 4 months, and currently ...
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Why didn't NASA re-use more astronaut crew members?
According to a popular space exploration web site, 355 individuals few in a total of 833 crew slots in the Space Shuttle program. That's an average of about 2.5 flights per astronaut, though many only ...
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What (if any) key mission events ended up falling on birthdays or anniversaries due to fine tuning by Robert Farquhar?
NPR's 2014 news article and audio podcast: Space Thief Or Hero? One Man's Quest To Reawaken An Old Friend says of Robert Farquhar (NASA, Wikipedia):
Farquhar is now 81 years old. He's been called the ...
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Have there been any advances in space exploration due to COVID-19 and/or shelter-in-place behavior?
Complementing Have there been any setbacks due to COVID-19— like delays or data-loss? I'm asking if there have been any advances or benefits due to COVID-19 and the "shelter in place" behavior it has ...
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Were there contemporary criticisms of NASA's pre-Challenger plans to exclusively use the Shuttle for US launches?
Before the Challenger accident, NASA planned to use the Space Shuttle as the exclusive launch vehicle for the US. While the other major launch vehicle families were never quite discontinued, I know ...
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Have there been any setbacks due to COVID-19-- like delays or data-loss?
I want to ask how this pandemic is expected to affect space travel and future plans for NASA and other space agencies. I've decided with the help of meta to ask more specifically about any currently ...
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Is there any independent evaluation/report on the feasibility of SpaceX going to Mars by 2024?
According to Independent report concludes 2033 human Mars mission is not feasible
An independent report concluded that NASA has no chance of sending
humans to Mars by 2033, with the earliest such a ...
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Most likely future sample return missions?
Please bear in mind I have very little space/astronomy knowledge with any comments or answers but I am curious and quite keen to learn.
Aside from Mars itself as that is such a likely candidate, what ...
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What was back-up plan in case of Apollo CSM Primary Guidance System IMU went to gimbal lock?
In Apollo-11, during preparations for docking with Command and Service Module in lunar orbit, Armstrong and Aldrin managed to put Lunar Module Primary Guidance System Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) ...
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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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How did NASA decide on its missions?
Does anyone know how NASA decided on what to do and what missions to follow? Was it something that was decided internally, or were missions ordered by the federal government?
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Is planetary impact testing planned for the InSight Mars lander's seismometers?
The question How could InSight's seismometers be intentionally and meaningfully “pinged”? is a hypothetical and has several good speculative answers.
But here I'd like to ask specifically about any ...
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Assuming MLM/Nauka is launched, what happens to MRM-1/Rassvet?
For the purposes of this question, assume Russia's Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM/Nauka) gets launched and makes it to the ISS.
Most articles I read say the MLM will dock at the FGB's nadir ...
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What are the limiting factors for interplanetary mission trajectories?
Besides the hard limit of available Delta V, and the soft limit of the time to destination, what are the main constraints when planning an interplanetary mission?
I'm thinking things like maximum ...
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How well can the orbits of Jupiter Trojans to be visited by Lucy be predicted?
The orbits of the large planets are very well known and their position may be precisely predicted for the planning of complex swing by maneuvers of interplanetary space probes. There are exact ...
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How fast are trips to the Moon for unmanned spacecraft typically?
The period of an orbit around the Earth is given by:
$$T = 2 \pi \sqrt{a^3/GM}$$
For Earth GM is about 3.986E+14 m^3/s^2. Put in $a$ = ((6378+400)*1000) for the ISS in LEO (as a test) and you get ...
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Why does ExoMars have more landing ellipse flexibility in 2020 than in 2018?
The BBC's ExoMars: Where to send Europe's robot rover? discusses the decision-making faced by the ExoMars Site Selection Working Group.
The working group will spend Thursday and Friday discussing ...
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Where is Lucy going? (asteroid mission)
On Halloween (31-Oct-2018) NASA Goddard announced that Lucy has a green light:
NASA’s Mission to Jupiter’s Trojans Given the Green Light for Development
All I have are these links which are now ...
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How would a Jupiter flyby have helped to get to the Sun? Why was it later ruled out?
The quote below surprised me. What were the orbital mechanical details of using a Jupiter flyby to get a probe from Earth so close to the Sun? Was a "U-turn" possible; single flyby of Jupiter into a ...
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Where can I find detailed information on spacewalks?
I am looking for detailed (as detailed as possible) information on the various space walks carried out on ISS. If I can get minute-by-minute steps taken, which bolts were turned, which wires were ...
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Decision making for NASA missions
A few years ago I read about a decision methodology that NASA uses to reduce the number of options/variables for future missions. Essentially, they make decisions that will remove the largest number ...
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Databases of "scrubbed" launch attempts?
I'm curious if there is a statistically demonstrable tendency not to schedule launches on certain days, such as those that contain leap seconds (see answers below this question), year changes, or ...
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How (the heck) can 2014 MU69's orbit be know well enough for a close flyby by New Horizons?
The object 2014 MU69 is much smaller and dimmer than Pluto. Even as New Horizons approaches, it will be much harder for its 8.2 inch aperture, cooled CCD long range imager LORRI to get a fix on it ...
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Any potential downside to throwing personal life support out the door on the Moon?
I found this really interesting description of the ALSEP instrumentation placed on the moon during the Apollo 11 landing, written by Hamish Lindsay, (also, author of Tracking Apollo to the Moon).
One ...
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In deep space missions, how much of the journey is pre-programmed and how much is "direct" control?
Regarding deep space missions, like the Rosetta mission, how much of the journey to the final destination is pre-programmed vs. recalculated on the fly? For the Rosetta example, was the whole sequence ...
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How fast can a launcher be retargeted?
Imagine that an asteroid is detected on an incoming trajectory, or some scientifically very interesting phenomenon occurs somewhere in the Solar System, prompting us to quickly send something there to ...
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Before the Columbia accident, were there shuttle manifests/plans for after ISS assembly complete?
Before the loss of Columbia during the STS-107 mission on February 1 2003, the International Space Station was scheduled to reach "Core Complete" status in February 2004. (Although this was ...
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Why is NASA redirecting an asteroid to Lunar Orbit instead of LEO? [duplicate]
One of the missions NASA is planning is to redirect a small asteroid to lunar orbit and land astronauts on it.
If it can redirect asteroids, why not just send it to LEO and send a Dragon to it?
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What is the effect of gravity slingshots around Earth on Earth's rotation and orbit time, and is this effect worth considering?
Several space probes have used gravitational slingshots around Earth as part of their mission plan to get to other places in our solar system. Some examples I could find quickly are Galileo, Messenger ...
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How would finding life on Mars affect the timeline to send people?
There are a lot of questions here about looking for life on Mars, potentially finding life on Mars, how to deal with life on Mars as far as contamination one way or the other, even whether or not ...
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How are gravity assists conceived?
So there are some very complex gravity assists out there. The Cassini mission, for instance, used a VVEJ (Venus Venus Earth Jupiter) gravity assist to make it to Saturn. Similar flybys have been done ...
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How does delaying Soyuz TMA-15M crew return help with ISS schedule slip due to failed Progress M-27M resupply vehicle?
After the failed Progress M-27M / Progress 59 resupply mission in late April 2015, Roscosmos and NASA have been working on ISS schedule changes to accommodate loss of supplies to the station, while an ...
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Any "what if" plans for space programs?
I assume that all space programs, manned and unmanned, have many "what if" plans for situations that might happen. For example, on the ISS they had fire alarm and evacuated to the Russian side. Are ...
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Are there any planned extra-solar missions by NASA or others?
Voyager 1 and 2 have been gone for a LONG time now (decades) and presumably we can produce bigger, faster and better probes these days that could tell us a lot more about the heliosphere. I've not ...
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How is an orbital rendezvous planned?
I'm curious how people plan an orbital rendezvous. This question explains the basic principles, but not in enough detail for me to understand how it actually works.
From playing Kerbal Space Program, ...
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How are space agencies coordinating their science missions internationally?
Is there any coordination between governmental space agencies in order to achieve complementary science goals with interplanetary and other space missions? If so, is this done somewhat informally ...
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If something "falls off" the L2 or L1 point, where will it go?
The L1 and L2 points are thought to be unstable "saddle" points, meaning that there is stability in two directions of movement, but not in the other. That raises an obvious question - when a ...
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Has any space agency studied a lunar outpost architecture inside of a cave?
Apparently a number of (what appear to be) cave entrances on the moon have been identified. There is a long list of technical advantages to setting up a base in a cave, as opposed to surface modules. ...
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How will the Mars One landing site be chosen?
How is Mars One planning on choosing a landing site? Will they be able to use NASA assets (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, etc) to assist with choosing a site, or will they have to make do with public ...
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Why are Europe’s Air & Space Academy and DLR urging ESA and CNES to reconsider the use of solid fuels for the proposed Ariane 6?
With Ariane 6 launch site selected, CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, the French space agency) was aiming to freeze the design of the new rocket in May 24, 2013. A few days after and that same ...
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How are flight plans calculated?
When a project like Rosetta is being developed, how are flight plans calculated? Do planners simply input the desired target into a program or a flight computer which spits out the optimum flight path ...
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