Re: Titan Orbiter/Balloon

From: Henry Spencer (henry_at_spsystems.net)
Date: 01/25/05 

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 01:41:10 GMT

In article <86vf9nhl8z.fsf@nova.revier.com>,
Jochem Huhmann <joh@gmx.net> wrote:
>Absolutely worth reading is "Post-Cassini Exploration of Titan: Science
>Rationale and Mission Concepts",
>http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rlorenz/jbis.pdf

Also, as the name might suggest, seen in the July/Aug 2000 issue of JBIS.
Definitely a very interesting paper. One point I'd forgotten since I
originally read it is that remote-sensing orbiters work poorly for Titan,
because the low temperatures and low gravity produce a *very* extended
atmosphere which makes orbits below ~1200km -- half a Titan radius! --
unstable(*). This makes gravity and magnetic measurements from orbit
almost useless -- all the short-wavelength components are gone at that
altitude -- and radar instruments would be difficult to build and would
perform poorly.

(* Huygens opened its parachute at around 170km up, lower than the Earth
parking orbits the later Apollo missions used... ) 

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