NASA
Uranus and its rings, through the Hubble telescope
Reduce to half the time we take to arrive in Uranus has been further-and it is essential if we want to study it.
Bringing a probe to the giant iced planets takes some time – a Uranus trip may take up to 13 yearseven with the help of Jupiter’s gravity. However, several ideas are being developed to accelerate this process, especially due to increased interest in sending the probe.
One of these ideas is to use a Aerocapture system To slow the probe as soon as it reaches the intended target. A new from Andrew Gomez-Delrio and his NASA Langley Research Center co-authors describe as a proposed mission for the Uranus orbiter (UOP) could use the same aerocapture technology that Curiosity used to dramatically improve the mission’s speed and payload capacity.
The use of an aerocapture system for a mission to cold giants has several advantages. First, as mentioned above, it can dramatically reduce the travel time needed to get there. Some estimates suggest that the travel time could be reduced to halfbut at the very least, it would reduce the duration of the trip in years.
Secondly, the percentage of payload that can be used for the main mission increases rather than used as a propeller fuel to get there. The third advantage is the reduction in the size and complexity of the propulsion system.
All of these advantages make an aerocapture system look good to any mission to uranus, so what is the problem? The development of such a system would usually take years and cost millions of dollars. But, according to the article, this is not necessary – the project engineers could only slightly modify the aerocapture system used to successfully carry Mars Science Laboratory – better known now as Curiosity – to the surface of the red planet.
Despite the seemingly very different nature from the two missions, the aerocapture system could be essentially the same. Formally, it is known as Thermal protection system (TPS). Its main component is the carbon aboller impregnated with phenol as (CPI), a material used in thermal shields due to its Low density and thermal conductivity.
Despite being very porous, it is one of the best materials for protecting the heat ships from the heat that suffer by reentry in the atmosphere of a planet. Or, in this case, when passing through the atmosphere of a planet. The intention with the Uranus probe is not to stop in the atmosphere of the planet, but cross it, using its deceleration effect on the spacecraft as a kind of brake.
In a typical scenario, TPS would go down with its own spacecraft after it was sufficiently slowed or would be ejected as the spaceship approached the surface of another planet. In the case of UOP, TPS would be ejected before establishing itself in a stable orbit around the target planet.
But the aerocapture system is only part of the general thermal management of the spacecraft, and the scientific article considers several other systems, as sophisticated types of isolation and heat conduction tubes constant that carry the heat from the various radio -eotopic thermal power generation systems to the rest of the mission hardware.
The article also provides a detailed analysis of how these systems work at different stages of the mission, such as a passage through Venus and their “Hibernation Journey.”
As with all such missions, the peso It is a determining feature, and an aerocapture system would allow significant amounts of weight in the form of less fuel and unnecessary external fuel tanks. This weight reduction also allows other vehicle settings, including some that would allow UOP collect data During its cruise phase or launch several next generation small atmospheric probes (Snaps).
There is still a long way to go before the UOP, as it still lacks financing, despite being the emblematic mission of the highest priority of the latest Planetary Decadal Survey.
Given the general lack of financing, there is a good chance that the mission itself will never leave the paper. But meanwhile, projects such as what resulted in this article, which was funded by a NASA Early Career Initiative scholarship, will continue to form the mission, hoping that one day it can explore one of the most interesting planets of our solar system.
