Airbus To Build 'First Interplanetary Cargo Ship' 43
Airbus-France will build the huge satellite that brings the first Martian rock samples back to Earth. The BBC reports: This material will be drilled on the Red Planet by the US space agency's next rover, Perseverance, before being blasted into orbit by a rocket. It'll be the Airbus satellite's job to grab the packaged samples and then ship them home. The joint American-European project is expected to cost billions and take just over a decade to implement. But scientists say it's probably the best way to confirm whether life has ever existed on the Red Planet. Any evidence is likely to be controversial and will need the powerful analytical tools only found in Earth laboratories to convince the doubters, the researchers argue.
The Airbus satellite will be a Goliath among spacecraft. The Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) will weigh 6.5 tonnes at launch in 2026 and use a mix of chemical and electric propulsion to get to Mars, orbit the planet and then return to Earth with its rock consignment. Thales Alenia Space of Italy will be a lead subcontractor working on this aspect of the design. The inclusion of a powerful ion engine will require a lot power, hence the use of immense solar arrays. These panels will give the satellite a "wingspan" of 39m, more than 120ft. But the really remarkable facet of the satellite's mission is the game of catch it will have to play high above Mars. Nasa will put a rocket on the planet later this decade to fire the rocks collected by Perseverance into orbit. The Airbus spacecraft will have to manoeuvre itself into a position to capture these samples that will be packaged inside a football-sized container. After ingesting this container, the satellite must then prepare it for return to Earth. "This is not just twice as difficult as any typical Mars mission; it's twice squared - when you think about the complexity involved," said Dr David Parker, the director of human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency (Esa). "And this satellite that Airbus will build -- I like to call it 'the first interplanetary cargo ship,' because that's what it will be doing. It's designed to carry cargo between Mars and Earth," he told BBC News.
The Airbus satellite will be a Goliath among spacecraft. The Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) will weigh 6.5 tonnes at launch in 2026 and use a mix of chemical and electric propulsion to get to Mars, orbit the planet and then return to Earth with its rock consignment. Thales Alenia Space of Italy will be a lead subcontractor working on this aspect of the design. The inclusion of a powerful ion engine will require a lot power, hence the use of immense solar arrays. These panels will give the satellite a "wingspan" of 39m, more than 120ft. But the really remarkable facet of the satellite's mission is the game of catch it will have to play high above Mars. Nasa will put a rocket on the planet later this decade to fire the rocks collected by Perseverance into orbit. The Airbus spacecraft will have to manoeuvre itself into a position to capture these samples that will be packaged inside a football-sized container. After ingesting this container, the satellite must then prepare it for return to Earth. "This is not just twice as difficult as any typical Mars mission; it's twice squared - when you think about the complexity involved," said Dr David Parker, the director of human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency (Esa). "And this satellite that Airbus will build -- I like to call it 'the first interplanetary cargo ship,' because that's what it will be doing. It's designed to carry cargo between Mars and Earth," he told BBC News.
Who's buying lunch (Score:1, Offtopic)
Inane, but all billable.
Right Direction but no Cigar (Score:3)
There are elements of the future direction we need to head but they stopped short of what is actually required.
We need to build a space ship.
Not some tin can you shoot across the void and hope you hit your target, but an actual ship that you can point and push the throttles forward and go.
How? We are almost there.
1. Need to loft a multi-megawatt nuclear reactor into orbit.
2. Need an array of electric propulsion engines.
3. Need a rotating section for artificial gravity.
4. Need descent and ascent vehicles.
5
Re: (Score:3)
Rotating sections cause wear, use energy, adds complexity, and introduces myriad points of failure. Better (at least at our current level of tech) to have the entire spacecraft rotate.
Otherwise agree. Too many people assume that the induced gravity-equivalent spin would have to be 1-G, but I think that's an unreasonable assumption. It's likely that fractional G will be sufficient, enough to give the body an sense of up/down and make plumbing easier. Once we have people long-term on the Moon we'll know f
A Dose of Reality (Score:2)
All this technology is laying around in various places and labs in one form or another, some even in junk piles.
Indeed. Only last month I threw out the 30MW nuclear reactor from my lab that I use to keep my feet warm in the winter. Putting it on our junk pile has even been great for local wildlife diversity and attracted a new population of two-headed squirrels which just love it.
Then there was the grad student down the hall who almost finished building an orbital ascent vehicle. Apparently it was part of some research project about the "100-mile high club" but after his girlfriend dumped him he lost interest and
Re: (Score:2)
Meh, fuck off.
... of Italy ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Goood luck with that, mates! :D
Fix It Again, Tony!
Or how we say in Germany: Fehler In Allen Teilen (Errors in all parts.)
Saved some cash, ask SpaceX to act as an Uber (Score:2)
Re:Saved some cash, ask SpaceX to act as an Uber (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if SpaceX do meet their goal (which is highly questionable at this stage), Europe is still going to want independent capability to do this kind of thing. It's the whole reason why we have our own space programmes really, we could just pay someone else to launch our satellites but then we would be reliant on them to get to orbit.
Japan is the same, they want to maintain that capability in case they need to fit warheads to the rockets one day, and so they can stay current with space technology.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if SpaceX do meet their goal (which is highly questionable at this stage)
You have to be kidding. RIght? What is questionable, let alone HIGHLY questionable about what SX is doing?
And yes, there will be no doubt that EUrope will continue to throw $ away on this folly. Far far better to work with SX and have them launch and land on Mars, and THEN, pull a small sat/rocket from their cargo bay to launch with.
Re: (Score:2)
They may get something on Mars in 2024, just not people. I have a feeling we'll get a manned mission from them well before the expected return date of the samples in this projects though.
The real truth (Score:3, Funny)
Failed Generation (Score:4, Insightful)
From now until 2026 when this thing will (probably not) launch, is around the same time it took to build the apollo rockets. It's just ridiculous when we are surrounded by such incredible technologies compared to the 1960s, that we have built an economy that focuses most of humanity's efforts on various casino activities (derivative trading, selling houses to each other) or making people click on ads.
I sincerely hope that the last 50 years will be seen as an anomaly during the industrialisation period, and that after all the turmoil we are in now, at the other end of it, we get back to valuing real contributions towards prosperity and progress, rather than people who create ever more complicated paper shuffling schemes.
Re: (Score:3)
Unlikely. There are no soviets with their advanced science programs to enter a dick measuring contest with anymore.
Re:Failed Generation (Score:4, Informative)
There's China. They have manned rockets, will soon have a space station, are headed to the Moon and Mars. Their Mars lander launched last week.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
There's China. They have manned rockets, will soon have a space station, are headed to the Moon and Mars. Their Mars lander launched last week.
Every country does what seems most important to that country at any one time. China makes giant strides space exploration because that seems important to China, meanwhile MAGAmerica is doing what seems much more important to them like making Liberals cry by defending gratuitous police brutality, telling women what they can and can't do with their uterus, regulating who gets to have sex with who and how often, stultifying the nation by teaching kids creationism and how to hate science because scientists are
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Re: (Score:1)
China makes giant strides space exploration because that seems important to China, meanwhile MAGAmerica is doing what seems much more important to them like making Liberals cry by defending gratuitous police brutality, telling women what they can and can't do with their uterus, regulating who gets to have sex with who and how often, stultifying the nation by teaching kids creationism and how to hate science because scientists are just a bunch of elites who get rich off of research grants.
Oh, and sending a rover to Mars in 2 and a half hours.
Yeah, maybe if Trump dons a He-Man costume lifts, his sword and yells: by the power of MAGA!!! he could actually pull that off?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
China is not quite there yet, they can't even build a reasonably well working turbofan. Maybe in a decade or two.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe we can grow beyond dick measuring contests by more women in leading positions. It does not always work, but sometimes.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't think women compete with each other? Wow. Just Wow.
Re: (Score:3)
While you do have a point, don't forget that 'useless' jobs are of all times. We already got all basic needs covered - building houses, producing food, providing health care, which can be done by a very small fraction of the population. The rest is strictly speaking just unnecessary overhead. It's there, it's not new, it's often not entirely useless as at least some of it is about trying to improve our quality of life, for example entertainment.
In my little country, we have a working population of about 4.5
Re: Failed Generation (Score:1)
I would disagree. The complexity is likely a magnitude more than the Apollo rockets, since the samples that they bring back will need to be in a hyper sterile enviroment.
My guess is that they'll find the same thing as the first samples by the Viking landers. If they find something else, how can they tell it if it was not something that made it's way to Mars from earth? Perhaps as an example something that was thrown into space from a large asteroid impact on earth.
And then this mission will not be good enou
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A Hoffman transfer orbit (least energy) to Mars takes 259 days. One-way. It's estimated that a trip to Mars and back [the-scientist.com] will result in a radiation dose of about 0.66 Sv (660 mSv). That's well over the lifetime safety limit for emergency responders on Earth. And that's just for the trip - it excludes time
Re: (Score:2)
That's because we got government focused on ourselves - things like budgets and the economy and jobs and religion and bedrooms and such, which leaves little money for moonshot style projects.
Plus, there's very little appetite for such things among the general public who feel money should be better spent elsewhere, where elsewhere can be anything from "draining the swamp" to many other things, like healthcare.
And in a way, they're right, we have the ability to go to the moon, surely the problem of things lik
Hopefully They Won't Contain (Score:3)
Demonic alien seeds in the rocks.
Re: (Score:2)
Airbus ? (Score:1)
Wouldn't Voidbus be more appropriate ? ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't Voidbus be more appropriate ? ;)
There is no such thing as a void. Even what seems like the empty void of space is bubbling and fizzing with subatomic particles so 'Subatomicparticlesoupbus' would be more scientifically accurate. However, I will admit that 'Voidbus' sounds better for marketing purposes.
Twice Squared (Score:3)
So it is 4 times as difficult as a normal Mars mission. It could be worse. However, there are a lot of firsts in this mission. Landing a huge device on Mars. Starting a device which gets into orbit around Mars (or at least far enough up to be captured and then into orbit). Create a transfer orbit. Capture at Earth. All remote controlled. They try to play a real world KSP Duna mission.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I think what he meant to say was "complexity is not just doubled, it is squared". Otherwise it would be silly to not say "4 times". I am pretty sure he did not mean (complexity0*2)^2, which is a direct interpretation of what he said, but is even sillier. In any case, I would expect a bit more accurate language constructs when talking about a space mission from an ESA director.
Re: (Score:2)
Goliath? (Score:2)
6.5 tons is heavy for an interplanetary mission, but about average for geostationary communications satellites.
Why do I try or care? (Score:1)
Ah, this is Europe's SLS (Score:2)
In fact, it would not surprise me, if he sends multiple BFRs there, and adds a small solid chemical rocket that will have the ability to launch a small sat with the samples on the way home.