Sedna Probe?

[Sanic]

  So, while reading around the internet, I found out that Sedna will reach its perihelion around 2077. Seeing as it has the most eccentric orbit in the solar system, in fact a suspiciously eccentric orbit, I see no reason why we shouldn't send a probe there. This is a chance that humanity just shouldn't pass up, seeing as Sedna reaches its perihelion every 11,400 years. I don't know, what do you guys think? 

Also, a supposed ninth planet was supposedly discovered today which supposedly caused Sedna's eccentric and inclined orbit. 

Edited January 21, 2016 by Sanic

[batman78781]

Yeah, it seems like a pretty good idea. It would have to be a mission with more than one probe though. A mission like this means that we probably won't get another shot at this place in a while, so we would need a lot of redundancy. Maybe a lander as well, the ice or whatever is out there could be really interesting. I am not ruling out a sample return though, there could be more advanced tech by then. If this goes through, we might need to launch as early as 2050 to intercept at perehelion. 

Actually now that I think about it, we might want to discuss how this might be done with current tech. I know stuff will get more advanced then, but a VASMIR or ion drive is a lot more likely to fail than UDMH, or other fuels. 

There is also other debates that could go on. Really big rocket, or gravity assist? How many probes?Cubesats? IMO there are a lot of difficulties, but it could be really rewarding. Take Pluto for example. It was so much more than a dead ball of ice, and if Sedna goes so far out, it could be so much cooler! 

 

P.S, I feel like this will be a popular thread, so.... 

First!   XD

Edited January 21, 2016 by batman78781

[Bill Phil]

I think they should do it. Hopefully by then we have amazing propulsion tech.

[Sanic]

2 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

I think they should do it. Hopefully by then we have amazing propulsion tech.

Or a plain old Jupiter gravity assist  

2 minutes ago, batman78781 said:

Yeah, it seems like a pretty good idea. It would have to be a mission with more than one probe though.

 

Why? For redundancy?

Edited January 21, 2016 by Sanic

[Spaceception]

Yes. Although, it'll need a full-blown nuclear reactor and VASIMR thrusters to Power/Propel the space craft, It'll also need to be launched on the SLS or MCT, since it'll likely be pretty heavy (That and Sedna is really far)

[Sanic]

Just now, Spaceception said:

Yes. Although, it'll need a full-blown nuclear reactor and VASIMR thrusters to Power/Propel the space craft, It'll also need to be launched on the SLS or MCT, since it'll likely be pretty heavy (That and Sedna is really far)

Or we could just launch an upgraded version of Voyager. Voyager 1 is well past Sedna's perihelion, and Voyager 2 is as well.

[Spaceception]

4 minutes ago, Sanic said:

Or a plain old Jupiter gravity assist  

Why? For redundancy?

A "Plain old Jupiter gravity assist" won't work, unless you want to wait ~30 years, we'll have to use a full-blown Nuclear reactor and VASIMR thruster, to shorten the time from ~30 years, to 10 years

3 minutes ago, Sanic said:

Or we could just launch an upgraded version of Voyager. Voyager 1 is well past Sedna's perihelion, and Voyager 2 is as well.

It took it ~30 years to get there though, I'll be in my 50's if they start now, which they won't, so, I'll be in my 60's, I don't want to wait that long!

[batman78781]

9 minutes ago, Sanic said:

Or we could just launch an upgraded version of Voyager. Voyager 1 is well past Sedna's perihelion, and Voyager 2 is as well.

Meh, we can always revisit the outer planet's, they are around the same distance from the sun. There is more science to do at Sedna since it goes so far out and this is probably our only chance for centuries or whatever. Interstellar dust sample return, anyone? This might seem over the top, but we'll have better tech (hopefully) and NASA is good at waiting a long time for things. Also, reverse gravity assists could be an option.

I do agree with a voyager style probe, but with more fuel. I think that it should try and enter orbit, perhaps with a lander. 

I'm a teenager though, so if I'm still interested in spaceflight, I might have a chance to work on it too! That goes for a lot of people on this forum actually.... 

 

Edited January 21, 2016 by batman78781

[Mitchz95]

I don't see any pressing reason to rush a mission forward. The 11,000 year orbital period is only an issue if you limit us to current-day technology. In another century or two we'll probably be able to get there in a couple years at most.

[Findthepin1]

Somebody already proposed this. See WISPIE, it's a concept for a flyby (I think). Search on forum for it. 

Edited January 21, 2016 by Findthepin1
That's a flyby, not a fluby. XD

[fredinno]

3 hours ago, Spaceception said:

A "Plain old Jupiter gravity assist" won't work, unless you want to wait ~30 years, we'll have to use a full-blown Nuclear reactor and VASIMR thruster, to shorten the time from ~30 years, to 10 years

It took it ~30 years to get there though, I'll be in my 50's if they start now, which they won't, so, I'll be in my 60's, I don't want to wait that long!

Would we even have enough money to finance such a probe? I mean, it would probably dethrone Cassini as the Flagship of Flagship Planetery probes pretty easily in terms of cost. It would still be awesome though. First Oort Cloud abject intercepted, and a truly intersellar mission!

Edited January 21, 2016 by fredinno

[Spaceception]

Just now, fredinno said:

Would we even have enough money to finance such a probe? I mean, it would probably dethrone Cassini as the Flagship of Flagship Planetery probes pretty easily in terms of cost.

Well... Seeing as the military spends more in a month than NASA does in a year, I'm pretty sure we can find the money (Or it could be an international effort), the problem is getting the politicians to agree on something (A little off-topic for a sec, why aren't scientists running for office and such?), and that alone will be a challenge.

[fredinno]

16 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Well... Seeing as the military spends more in a month than NASA does in a year, I'm pretty sure we can find the money (Or it could be an international effort), the problem is getting the politicians to agree on something (A little off-topic for a sec, why aren't scientists running for office and such?), and that alone will be a challenge.

If NASA had the money, or polititans were willing to give it, we would have people on Mars right now.

[batman78781]

4 minutes ago, fredinno said:

If NASA had the money, or polititans were willing to give it, we would have people on Mars right now.

Exactly. We would have even gotten there sometime in the 90's even.

 

22 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

(A little off-topic for a sec, why aren't scientists running for office and such?)

I think because the elections are pretty much limited to people with a lot of money, and a lot of popularity. The public doesn't appreciate scientists as much as we should.

[Kaos]

If we manage to develop a cube sat sized probe that has decent scientific instruments on it we could send one to each of the minor planets. If 50% succeed this program would already be a great success and we would learn a lot. If we fit them with fission sails, we could even plan the missions such that they go into orbit.

[Streetwind]

@Sanic - one and a half years ago I made a thread about this, which may interest you

Of course, some things have changed since then... at least one object with an even more extreme orbit has been discovered (although it is much smaller), and missions like New Horizons have taught us some valuable lessons about extreme distance missions. For instance, how do we power the thing? New Horizon's biggest bottleneck was power output; they deliberately didn't even mount the highest resolution science instruments possible, because they knew they would already be struggling as is to transmit the data they collected. Even with an antenna the size of the whole spacecraft, New Horizons will be transmitting for over one year straight in order to get everything home, and Sedna is twice that far away. Power supply is an absolutely critical design factor, especially if the probe will be spending between two and three times as much time in space before reaching its destination, which will noticably degrade common nuclear power sources. And if electric propulsion should be involved, then power becomes an even bigger issue.

Then there's the human issue. I mean, for us it would suck to have to wait 30 years for a probe to arrive at an interesting destination - but now imagine that you're the principal investigator, or a member of the operations team! How do you plan a deep space mission where there's a very real chance that you won't be alive by the time it arrives? And even if neither cancer nor accident shortens your life expectancy, what do you do during 30 years of flight? Between planning, fighting for approval, construction, launch, travel, encounter and finally analyzing the data, you're going to need people who dedicate literally their entire working life to that one single task. It's quite the sobering thought, really. Though somewhat breathtaking as well

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, Kaos said:

If we manage to develop a cube sat sized probe that has decent scientific instruments on it we could send one to each of the minor planets. If 50% succeed this program would already be a great success and we would learn a lot. If we fit them with fission sails, we could even plan the missions such that they go into orbit.

What's a fission sail?

And I doubt you can fit more than one deep space instrument on a Cubesat. Not to mention the antenna alone would likely take up 2U- and you would need at least another 2-4U for an ion drive/xenon tanks for orbital manuvers. 1U is used up by the spacecraft's brain, plus another 1U for data storage (it takes forever to downlink data from Pluto), AND another 1-2 U for an RTG to power the ion drives and spacecraft. This leaves 2U for a scientific experiment- something that seriously limits the potential of the spacecraft.

[Kaos]

20 minutes ago, fredinno said:

What's a fission sail?

And I doubt you can fit more than one deep space instrument on a Cubesat. Not to mention the antenna alone would likely take up 2U- and you would need at least another 2-4U for an ion drive/xenon tanks for orbital manuvers. 1U is used up by the spacecraft's brain, plus another 1U for data storage (it takes forever to downlink data from Pluto), AND another 1-2 U for an RTG to power the ion drives and spacecraft. This leaves 2U for a scientific experiment- something that seriously limits the potential of the spacecraft.

I known. That is why I wrote "If we manage to develop" instead of "we should". A fission sail is similar to a solar sail, but layered with some alpha-emitter on one side. Dependent on the mass fraction and the used isotope one gets somewhat between 1-5km/s/a with an acceleration halftime between 70 and 400 years.

In that case, one would at least not need the ion drives

To make it clear: I consider this mission plan cool, perhaps possible, but not likely.

[lajoswinkler]

Lander? That won't happen, we can't do it. No way, absolutely no way for now.

 

Flyby probe? Why not?

[Motokid600]

We could probably do a high energy transfer with today's tech. Just like with New Horizons. Stick an under sized probe on an oversized rocket.

[Spaceception]

13 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

We could probably do a high energy transfer with today's tech. Just like with New Horizons. Stick an under sized probe on an oversized rocket.

A New Horizons sized probe on a SLS?

[Motokid600]

17 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

A New Horizons sized probe on a SLS?

Might have to be smaller even, but yea absolutely. Falcon Heavy might be capable as well. You can forget going into orbit though. Itd strictly be a flyby. And like a... 30 year transfer.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Motokid600

[Kryten]

13 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

A New Horizons sized probe on a SLS?

That's still a New Frontiers mission at the very minimum. Nobody is going to hand off on another NF mission for a KBO when there are plenty of other targets we now know less about. Sedna has an interesting orbit yes, but there's very little chance this would make a meaningful difference to the body itself.

[Nuke]

it would probibly have to be a flyby. the delta-v to match the object's velocity is likely non trivial.

[Motokid600]

Lets just call it a day and go to Europa.