# Questions tagged [interplanetary]

Questions regarding spacecraft designed to travel between planets.

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### Spin-stabilization of a NASA rover en route to Mars. What and why?

This NASA's site describes a launch sequence of a rover towards Mars, from which we can read: Before the third stage's rocket is fired to get the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and on its way to Mars, ...
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### Standing still to move forward [closed]

If our galaxy is tracking through space at ~1.3mm, couldn’t we arrive at point B if we came to a stop at point A. i.e. decelerate to -1 g
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### Exactly why does Starship need to be this big for interplanetary travel?

As discussed in several answers to Isn't Starship way too big? Starship's unusual size is due to it being intended for missions to the Red Planet. But why? Even a smaller ship could satisfy the ...
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### Are there any greater risks of traveling significantly faster to another planet?

Earlier I had thought that space ships can strike against space rocks while traveling to another planet. But I've read that space is vastly empty, it's highly unlikely that something will come in the ...
184 views

### Why allow communication with interplanetary spacecraft to be silent for stretches of time; only getting updates on certain days & times of the week?

Communication between planetary bodies in space, e.g. from the moon, or Mars, takes a long time and has many shortcomings, like line of sight requirements. Communication with interplanetary spacecraft ...
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### Is the life support system on ISS and other used manned spacecrafts fully redundant?

I just finished watching the Sci-Fi movie Stowaway where the crew of the spacecraft MTS-42 heading to Mars, gets in all kind of troubles after the failure of the single life support system. My ...
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### Would a spaceplane be able to softly land on an airless planet?

Assuming the spaceplane has no vertical (hover)engines, is there a possibility to land a spaceplane on a celestial body without atmosphere in a horizontal way as if it had one? One could lower the ...
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### Query on artifical gravity via symmetrical tethered rotation

Has there been any consideration to the use of a tether between to identical space vehicles (e.g. two SpaceX Starships) to induce artifical gravity? I think you would need a diameter that could only ...
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### Obtaining orbital parameters of a closed orbit given the characteristics of the arrival hyperbolic orbit

According to this paper (page 8) by ESA, given the $v_{inf}$, the right-ascension and the declination of the arrival hyperbolic asymptote, it is possbile to find a loci of pericenters of different ...
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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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Have there been any interplanetary secondary payloads? If there were none, are any such payloads planned? I consider two options: launcher rocket's destination is Earth's orbit (LEO etc.), then ...
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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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### With C3 = 16 km²/sec², How much ∆V is required for the probe to enter a Mars orbit with periapsis at 100 km and Apoapsis at 1000 km?

A Mars probe leaves earth with a Characteristic energy (C3) of 16 km²/sec². How much ∆V is required for the probe to enter a Mars orbit with periapsis at 100 km and Apoapsis at 1000 km?
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### Asteroid orbiting between Earth and Mars as ferry?

What if we moved a large asteroid to a highly elliptical orbit between Earth and Mars and then occupied it like we occupy the ISS? It'd be a slow trip to Mars, but if we're in no rush, we'd get free ...
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### Why is it so hard to build crewed rockets/spacecraft able to reach escape velocity?

Why are we still not going farther than to Low Earth Orbit? Orbital velocity is about 4.8 mi/s (7.7 km/s) and escape velocity is about 7 mi/s (11.2 km/s), about 45% faster. Why is it so hard to reach ...
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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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### Could we intentionally contaminate another celestial body with life to start producing oxygen?

My question is simple, could we "nuke" a planet with life to create an atmosphere over time? I was seeing a documentary about Jupiter's moon, Europa, and how it could have hydro thermal ...
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### One mothership and many droneships concept for interplanetary travel

In sci-fi movies, like Independence Day, we find one big mothership flanked by many small droneships. Take-off and landing giant spaceship is technically difficult and dangerous. The landing surface ...
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### Updating of TAI

In spaceflight keeping track of time between systems widely separated in space (e.g. people on Earth vs spacecraft in deep space) and/or time, moving at substantial relative velocities and in ...
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### Range of travel time between particular planets using the Interplanetary Transport Network/Interplanetary Superhighway?

I understand the Interplanetary Transport Network allows for travel at low speeds between different planets in the solar system using very little energy. Is there flexibility in how long it would take ...
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### When the magnetic poles of the Sun flip (once in 11 years), is the Earth hit by more galactic cosmic rays?

The Sun protects us from cosmic rays from beyond the solar system. Every 11 years, the Sun's poles reverse. Solar cosmic rays are greatest during the reversal. During the reversal, are we hit by more ...
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### Would it be easier to put humans on Venus rather than Mars?

With all the speculation of manned missions to Mars, there is very little talk of a manned mission to Venus (whose orbit is closer to the orbit of Earth than mars is). That being said, would it be ...
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### Is it possible to send a CubeSat to Saturn/Enceladus?

I was wondering if it is technologically possible to send a CubeSat/Nanosatellites or constellation of nanosatellites to explore the water vapor jets in the southern region of Enceladus in the Saturn ...
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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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### 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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### Optimal point in LEO to perform interplanetary injection burn

I wrote a simulation program in Python to calculate Earth <-> Mars trajectories. Now I would like to test it agains well known trajectories. I used NASA Ames Research Center Trajectory Browser ...
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### Is the concept of the Epstein Drive based on actual theorized scientific research which is considered plausable?

I've always found it interesting when we see real life taking its cues from fictional arts, especially when it comes to Science Fiction technology. There are plenty of examples of classic books, TV ...
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### Tradeoffs sending a tank of fuel ahead of a crewed mission to another planet?

This is something that I'd seen in the BBC fictional documentary Voyage to the Planets. There, as the crew arrives in the orbit of Mars, there's a tank that has already been sent there so that the ...
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### How does a spacecraft navigate along and jump between constant v-inf lines depicted in Tisserand graphs?

Below is an example Tisserand graph showing interplanetary trajectories (in bold black). The first one represents a trajectory from Earth till the Mercury system. In the second one, the spacecraft ...
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### Would a long-term network of relay satellites but worthwhile for interplanetary communication? [duplicate]

Communication rates with probes in the outer solar systems are extremely low (Voyager is ~160 bps), because of the inverse square law and the extreme distances involved. Achieving these rates ...
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### Why was there never a lander for the Martian north polar cap?

Since the Martian poles are water ice caps, belong to the most likely locations on Mars to host life, and the north pole being the most likely place for a crewed mission, it seems reasonable that one ...
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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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### How much thrust is "high" thrust (for orbital transfers)

I understand that chemical rockets and nuclear thermal rockets (and possibly very high power electrical thrusters) are considered to provide "high" thrust for orbital transfers, while electrical ...
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### Could the kinetic energy in the Sun's solar wind power an ion propulsion system for an interplanetary spacecraft?

I am wondering if the kinetic energy of the Sun's solar wind could energize heavy ions to the point in which they would produce enough momentum to propel an interplanetary spacecraft. To help ...
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### Issue with the Gauss problem for solving interplanetary trajectories

Blue is Earth, Red is Mars, Orange is Jupiter and all the whites are Earth to Mars trajectories. The odd trajectory lines in the middle are the problem I'm trying to solve. As you can see in the ...
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### Will SpaceX Starship have launch abort system? [duplicate]

Since future SpaceX Starship is planned as long duration passenger spacecraft for multiplanetary transport will it have launch abort system? Also how is crew evacuation planned during interplanetary ...
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### Thrust value for a metallic hydrogen rocket-propelled spacecraft traveling on brachistochrone trajectories?

Using the attached nomogram for computing brachistochrone trajectories to other bodies throughout our solar system, I am working with the assumption that this spacecraft travels with a constant ...
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It always seems to be a genuine question that is How can we download data from far away probes in instant. When New Horizons reached Ultima Thule, it took us quite a few months to have a great picture ...
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### Why are we interested in visiting the giant planets' icy moons?

I have noticed lately that future missions by NASA and ESA are targeted towards the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. They mention that they might be a possibility of life; the icy moons they are focusing ...
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### Interplanetary spacecraft flight operating system and programming language

Which programming languages and operating systems are mostly used for interplanetary satellites (such as a mission to the moon)? To my knowledge, I know some LEO CubeSats use C programming language ...
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### Two-body problem VS Three-body problem Applications

The two-body problem deals with two bodies under certain assumptions while the restricted three-body problem deals with three bodies where one has a negligible mass (i.e. spacecraft or comet) I was ...
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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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### Is it possible to force atmosphere onto a non atmospheric planet?

If you had some way of injecting large masses of gas into a small planets gravitational field, would it form an atmosphere? You would have to pump it at an extreme rate but would it still work if the ...
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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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### Is there a list of world wide upcoming space events on the web?

Is there a list of all the international upcoming events like launches, expected arrivals at, and landings on celestial bodies, etc. on the internet ?
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### Do you need to burn fuel between gravity assists?

If you are planning a mission to an outer planet with multiple gravity assists included, do you need to do some burns for corrections, between the slingshots, or the ideal trajectory is already ...
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### Do satellites inject into a Hohmann transfer orbit in Low Earth Orbit or in Solar orbit?

Lets say we have a satellite wanting to go to Mars. Do satellites such as MAVEN inject into a Hohmann transfer orbit while in Earth's orbit, or do they go out of Earth's Sphere of Influence into solar ...
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### How were Venera's variometers able to measure extremely weak, nano-Tesla magnetic fields?

The image below is from the really interesting page Inventing The Interplanetary Probe (linked by @A.Rumlin here). Above the fluxgate magnetometer there is a pair of short tubes labeled "...