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Riding an Ion Drive to the Asteroid Belt
Iron Condor writes "JPL is now close to embarking on another of its trademark, one-of-a-kind missions, this time to the heart of the asteroid belt: The Dawn mission is being prepared for launch this summer from Kennedy Space Center. Dawn will explore Ceres and Vesta, the two largest known asteroids in our solar system, which lie in the vast expanse between Mars and Jupiter. In the process, the mission will make history on several fronts. Besides being the first spacecraft to orbit a main-belt asteroid and the first to ever orbit two targets after leaving Earth, Dawn will be the first science mission powered by electric ion propulsion, the world's most advanced and efficient space propulsion technology."
Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
I enjoyed the article - take a look at the FAQ. The author(s) mention that ION drive is "acceleration with patience" - it will take 6 years of accelerate to change the spacecraft's velocity by 10KM/s but will use a fraction of the weight of propellant that conventional chemical propulsion would.
Space exploration and the related technology are still in their infancy, it is really exciting to to see the stuff of decades old sci-fi making into reality. Who can predict what non-conventional propulsion systems will look like in 50 years?
KK4SFV
Japanese and European science/tech validation space missions have also used ion propulsion.
I believe you could make a distinction between science and technology missions. To my knowledge, all previous missions involving ion propulsion have been for the purpose of testing ion drives, while this one is expected to perform scientific exploration and happens to use an ion drive.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Yes, look at how those Twin Ion Engine (TIE) Fighters faired in that asteroid belt. Not good.
When a man lies he murders a part of the world.
It's not difficult to do if the two objects are in approximately the same orbital path. So, perhaps, we might soon get a probe looking at Phobos and Deimos.
Of course, most probes orbit the Earth for a while after launch, before injection into their transit path. All the early moon probes orbited both the earth and the moon, and the manned ones then orbited the earth again after return. So you could say that three targets have been orbited before, back in the '60s. This was just the project team looking for a 'first' to impress Americans with.
I suppose the difficulty levels go:
Orbit your base
Orbit your base and your target
Orbit your base, then gravity assist from other object, then orbit your target
Orbit your base, then gravity assist, then swing by one target, then orbit final target (typical multi-planet probe)
Orbit your base, then gravity assist, then orbit one target, then orbit another.
In fact, I was most impressed with the few probes which altered their trajectories in mid-mission to do swing-bys of targets of opportunity. You need flexible fuel provision to do that!
To the true geek, it's all Impulse Power.
Move along, there's no warping to see here.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Dawn is attempting to explore Vesta. Cancel or Allow?