Real Life delta v's?

[mstrfalco]

I was just curious what space ship/craft/ect has the largest delta v budget? can't find anything online. Wiki says new horizions is going to leave the solar system with the largest velocity. But it got a lil help from big ol jupiter so maybe there are some other craft that had larged delta v budgets? Idk anyone got any idea or where I could look? quite curious

[jwenting]

Just because it's on a solar escape trajectory doesn't mean it's got a high dV budget. It just means it's going at quite a clip

It could well have 0 dV left because it's spent all its fuel long ago, like Voyager 2 (probably) which is well on its way out of the solar system (and has in fact already been reported several times as having left it, they just keep finding new definitions of where the solar system ends as V'ger travels further and further away from home).

[stupid_chris]

Actually New Horizons still has some fuel left IIRC, around 290m/s, enough to potentially plan a Kuiper object encounter after passing Pluto. But yeah it didn't have much to start with, it just had a lot of help from gravity assists.

[tavert]

For chemical rockets alone, "New Horizons was launched on 19 January 2006, directly into an Earth-and-solar-escape trajectory with an Earth-relative velocity of about 16.26 km/s (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph) after its last engine was shut down. Thus, the spacecraft left Earth at the greatest-ever launch speed for a man-made object." The craft itself only has 290 m/s delta-V on its own for trajectory corrections and attitude control.

Although New Horizons had the fastest Earth-escape speed, it won't escape the solar system quite as fast as the Voyagers since they had Saturn flybys too: "Even though it was launched far faster than any outward probe before it, New Horizons will never overtake either Voyager 1 or Voyager 2, as the most distant man-made object from Earth. Close fly-bys of Saturn and Titan gave Voyager 1 an advantage with its extra gravity assist. When New Horizons reaches the distance of 100 AU, it will be travelling at about 13 km/s (29,000 mph), around 4 km/s (8,900 mph) slower than Voyager 1 at that distance."

Dawn is using ion propulsion to get over 10 km/s of delta-V, allowing it to do all sorts of cool science at multiple places around the asteroid belt.

Edited August 1, 2013 by tavert

[stupid_chris]

The escape trajectory was set off by a Centaur stage, not the craft itself, that's why I didn't mention it. Else mentioning the Atlas launch vehicle would be necessary too. But yeah, it's the fastest Earth escape yet.