Re: Titan Orbiter/Balloon

From: Henry Spencer (henry_at_spsystems.net)
Date: 01/22/05 

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 22:06:54 GMT

In article <1106409880.714252.109460@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
Explorer <Explorer8939@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Would it be feasible to use aerobraking at Titan to facilitate a Titan
>orbiter?

Yes and no and maybe. Once you've entered some sort of Titan orbit,
aerobraking can certainly be used to lower it. Getting *into* such an
orbit is a harder problem. A Saturn orbiter doesn't encounter Titan often
enough for slow aerobraking (like that used at Mars) to work well. And
doing aerocapture -- shedding a *lot* of velocity with a single pass,
using a heatshield and active control -- is rather iffy, especially in a
poorly-known atmosphere: navigation has to be very precise. Nobody's
used aerocapture even for Mars, yet.

>What about deployment of a long lived balloon within Titan's
>atmosphere, can some sort of balloon survive and operate in the cold?

Like a surface probe, it would *probably* need an RTG for power if you
want it to be long-lived. Given that, the idea is not ridiculous. The
only major question is whether the atmosphere is windy enough to make
ballooning operations risky. It would be better to know a bit more about
Titan first. 

-- 
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend."    |   Henry Spencer
                                -- George Herbert       | henry@spsystems.net

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