Enceladus-3 (March 12, 2008) |
Enceladus-3 (March 12, 2008) |
Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Feb 24 2006, 09:12 PM
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#1
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Guests |
Excerpt from Cassini Significant Events for 02/16/06 - 02/22/06:
"As mentioned in previous weeks, the project has been working on adopting a new reference trajectory in order to raise the minimum Titan flyby altitude for various encounters. Today the project reached a decision to proceed with the 'optocc2' trajectory. Additional work is still to be performed before delivery of the final files. This will include minor tweaks that have been analyzed in other trajectories, adjusting orbit 68 timing, and capture of an Enceladus plume occultation on orbit 28." For the record, the new reference trajectory will result in an even more spectacular Enceladus-3 flyby [61EN (t) E3] on March 12, 2008. |
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Mar 10 2006, 07:24 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 688 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Sweden Member No.: 273 |
Isn’t landing on Enceladus an unnecessarily complicated way to investigate the possible existance of life there? Here we have a watery planet that is obliging enough to blow its water and whatever is in it off into space and thereby preserving it at cryogenic temperatures where you can get at it without having to get down into the gravity well.
What is needed is a probe that gets into an orbit that is nearly, but not quite co-orbital with the E-ring and deploys a scoop to collect ice/water for analysis. It takes quite a lot of energy to heat ice from -200 and melt it, so you can use a fairly high relative speed (certainly a couple of hundred meters per second) and so sweep a fairly large volume in a short time. You might also “trawl” the plumes themselves for fresher material but it would be difficult to stay in the plumes for any length of time without having to go into orbit around Enceladus. tty |
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