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What Would Have Happened If Philae Were Nuclear Powered?
StartsWithABang writes After successfully landing on a comet with all 10 instruments intact, but failing to deploy its thrusters and harpoons to anchor onto the surface, Philae bounced, coming to rest in an area with woefully insufficient sunlight to keep it alive. After exhausting its primary battery, it went into hibernation, most likely never to wake again. We'll always be left to wonder what might have been if it had functioned optimally, and given us years of data rather than just 60 hours worth. The thing is, it wouldn't have needed to function optimally to give us years of data, if only it were better designed in one particular aspect: powered by Plutonium-238 instead of by solar panels.
Basically the US has exhausted its meager supply. And the few supplies existing elsewhere are being jealously hoarded.
There's ways to MAKE more, and improve nuclear power at the same time. But nobody wants to talk about it.
Because nukes = bombs. M'kaaay?
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NASA is almost out of Plutonium. With the end of the cold war the US stopped refining uranium and producing plutonium. There's not much left and it's becoming a real problem for the designers of long term space missions, especially ones that are far enough that solar power isn't a viable option.
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If it was nuclear powered, then it would have been much heavier and would require a much longer mission and use something more than single-use devices. The entire scope of the mission would have to change!
The primary batteries were for the main mission, The solar panels were "extras". So, nothing much would have been gained if this was nuclear powered device and nothing else changed.
Nuclear powered spacecraft are only really needed outside Jupiter's orbit. Or perhaps on landers designed to operate for extended period of time with a reliable power supply. For the rest, the extra weight is something that is not desirable.
And if that comet then hit earth, do you know what a huge catastrophe that would have caused?
Then we would be saying 'ah but couldn't they just use solar power?'
this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
Doesn't nuclear power work by boiling water? Doesn't it require that steam then turning back to water?
Uh, no.
Do a web search on RTG sometime.
It's a question of weight. No matter how you build them, nuclear Radioisotope Thermal Generators are heavy. This mission was heavily mass-constrained. What they wanted it to do was at the limit of what the rockets were capable of.
Add a several-hundred-kilogram RTG to to mix, and the 'rocket equation' kills you. You just cannot get the probe to the comet. Solar panels were the only option.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it have been really bad if there had been a boatload of plutonium-238 on the Challenger?
Uh, no.
A boatload of Pu-238 won't explode, and RTGs are designed to stay together even in a launch explosion. If I remember correctly, one RTG was involved in a launch explosion, and it was recovered, refurbished, and used again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
"One example is the RTG used by the Voyager probes - 23 years after production, the radioactive material inside the RTG will have decreased in power by 16.6%, i.e. providing 83.4% of its initial output; starting with a capacity of 470 W, after this length of time it would have a capacity of only 392 W. A related (and unexpected) loss of power in the Voyager RTGs is the degrading properties of the bi-metallic thermocouples used to convert thermal energy into electrical energy, the RTGs were working at about 67% of their total original capacity instead of the expected 83.4%. By the beginning of 2001, the power generated by the Voyager RTGs had dropped to 315 W for Voyager 1 and to 319 W for Voyager 2."
The writer of the article didn't do his research. The designers did not expect the instruments to survive the approach to the Sun. So this could not have gone on for years and years.
From: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Frequently_asked_questions "In any case, by March 2015, when the comet is closer to the Sun, it is likely that the lander will become too hot to operate."
This was a NASA project?
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Hi there, I'm Bruce Halberstadt, the chief scientist involved in the Philae lander design. If only we knew of this option when we were designing our lander!
Would you like to come work for us on the next lander? We need more people like you.
We've been hiring all of the top internet commenters for our next project, I think it's going to be spectacular. I can't confirm it just yet, but from recent meetings, it looks like the next project will be a giant robot that searches for extra-terrestrial boobies, with devices on-board to send back relevant cat videos. With your help, maybe we can make this thing nuclear powered.
Bruce Halberstadt
This has been done to death in a variety of places. An RTG was not used for many reasons such as mass and availability, balanced off against the science experiments that both probes carried. Rosetta was always slated to do most of the experiments, and the landing of Philae was always an unpredictable event (I've read that a matching set of harpoons kept on Earth for the last 10 years in a vacuum also failed to fire).
But think about it. Add an RTG, which adds mass, which means less science overall, possibly to the point of not including a lander. Not only that, you need to oversize the RTG so that when 10 years of zooming around the solar system are up, that it still has enough juice to do the work you want.
The people who designed Rosetta/Philae are rocket scientists, and I am not second guessing their choices. What they have already achieved is phenomenal, and the science has only just started.
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Np, it would not have mattered.
Numerous times RTG-powered spacecraft had their main rocket "explode" or "fail" and the RTGs were just recovered. Early models, packed without any precautions at all, basically contaminated some small area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
Then again, if you are worried about RTGs contaminating things, you should probably pull all your hair out over the nuclear weapon tests that occurred and all the stockpiled weapons, ready to be deployed at moment's notice. Weapon testing contaminated ALL soil around the world with detectable amounts of plutonium. Amount of the substance in RTGs is negligible by comparison.
This is only because of precaution-principle aficionados, gaia loving, "activists" who objected to both the building of new, safer, reactors and reactor design research.
And if that comet then hit earth, do you know what a huge catastrophe that would have caused?
Then we would be saying 'ah but couldn't they just use solar power?'
The mass of the Churyumov---Gerasimenko comet is roughly 1 x 10^13kg. Should it ever fall to earth, I wouldn't expect the dispersal of U-238 from an aging Rosetta-class probe to be my biggest concern.
Er you mean logical and obviously superior?
It would be superior, but not logical. Using a nuke would have doubled the cost of the mission, due to handling costs and higher payload mass. Since the ESA has a fixed budget, doubling the cost means half as many missions. Rather than a few expensive "superior" probes, it is better to launch more missions, and live with the fact that some of them will fail.
Philae was a European project, and they didn't have expertise in space-capable RTGs. Plutonium fuel is also difficult to source. And the fuel depletes even when you're not using it, so after a 10 year idle while travelling to the comet it would have lost a significant amount of fuel, requiring a larger amount to start with. They'd also need significant heatsinks to keep the waste energy from melting everything. RTGs aren't always superior in every situation.
You're trying to study a temperature-sensitive environment in its natural state. An RTG produces lots of heat. (They are only about 5% efficient, so they produce twenty times as much heat as electrical power.) The presence of the RTG might perturb or destroy the environment you're there to study. I don't have the detailed knowledge to say if this is the case.
Plus the issues others have raised: mass, scarcity of suitable isotopes, and launching highly radioactive material on top of hundreds of tonnes of potentially explosive fuel is something you'd rather avoid if possible.
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About 8% in 10 years; planners need to know about it, but that's hardly a big concern.
Given the many missions they've been used on successfully, that doesn't seem to be a major problem. And if you're willing to fold out big solar panels, you obviously have the budget for heat sinks.
They are by far the best known battery technology for robotic space exploration, satellites, and probes.
RTGs only lose about one percent per year (less than that, usually). With the power bonus you get from RTGs (more power per weight when compared to solar panels at that distance from the Sun), you still end up with a large bonus of generated power, even when using the smallest types of RTGs that have been deployed.
A SNAP-3B would have started with about 52 watts, and after twelve years would have about 45 watts of power - compared to the 32 watts worth of solar power available from panels - for a total weight of about five pounds, and a much, much less complex system (versus solar cell deployment/pointing and batteries).
I wonder where there is a break-even whereby it makes sense to send the mechanical stuff ahead but send the computer part on a smaller, faster shot simply due to the power savings and increased processing capacity gained in what would be the time in between the launches.
If an out-of-control rocket falls on my head, whether it was carrying a little plutonium or a solar panel isn't going to be high on my list of concerns.
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The team fully expects Philae to get more light early next year. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technol...
Due to several sources closely linked with the Rosetta program, Philae will be getting a whole lot of sun come May 2015 due to the position of the comet as it adjusts it's precession around the sun and moves that particular part of the comet in to near-constant daylight. Expect more news at that point from Philae. You heard it here first, folks.
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I get the mission design, and I think most people here get the idea, too. But ESA seems to have missed the boat on the PR and public affairs front.
The demise of the lander after a complete primary mission is being portrayed as a huge failure. As near as I can tell, it did exactly what it was supposed to do for about as long as it was supposed to. Anything beyond that was "if possible".
Additionally, the mission is being shown as a "lander mission" instead of an orbiter with a small lander tacked on. Rosetta is still doing the mission as intended, and most of the objectives are being met very nicely. I see all sorts of comments in the press (and particularly in the European media and media comments section) as another Beagle "cock-up".
I think it's a very nicely done mission that is working very well. It's a shame that it is not coming across like that.
I was ignorantly assuming that they'd do everything they could to insure the accomplishment of the mission. I realize how foolish I was now.
Yes, that is a very foolish assumption. Even if they spent a quadrillion euros, they still could not do everything to ensure success. Real life involves tradeoffs. Most people learn this by the time they are adults.
Philae does not have fold out solar panels. It is covered with panels but nothing to fold out. So not mass budget there.
The whole thing has a mass of about 100kg. There is not much to spare in it.
So, let me see if I understand this... You have a device that needs 32 watts of electricity to operate. You're proposing we power it with an RTG, which are typically only 3% efficient at heat conversion. So that RTG has to produce at least 1.1kW of heat. You're telling me that you want to land a 1.1kW heat source on a body whose surface measures below -70C, and whose surface is made of frozen ammonia, water, methanol, carbon dioxide, and methane. Anyone see the problem here?
No, it has nothing to do with that. The Nuclear Test Ban treaty prohibits nuclear bomb tests, it doesn't care about radioactive materials directly.
No, it works by turning atoms into other atoms. What you do with the resulting heat and radiation is up to you. Whether you use it to drive a steam turbine, a Stirling engine or a thermocouple is up to you.
Stop being so completely foolish. The plutonium is encased strongly enough that is will survive unexpected reentry let along a launch explosion. It is purely a thermal source and the biggest risk would be burning yourself on it.
Everything else is just knee jerk uneducated scare tactics.
Sad really. And rather pathetic.
The first is that if something goes wrong on takeoff you risk what is effectively a 'dirty bomb' going off somewhere in the Earth's atmosphere which is not good.
Its not nearly as bad as you think. The biggest impact of a dirty bomb in a city would be psychological.
In the atmosphere, less important.
had better make sure that the craft does not return for Earth for a few billion years otherwise, again, it is like a dirty bomb going off in the atmosphere.
Uh, nuh. Pu238 half-life is 88 years. Here is the most basic clue about radioactivity: radiation intensity is inversely related to halflife. If it has a billion-year half-life, it is barely radioactive at all. A dirty bomb needs something with lots of radiation, and so a short half-life.
> we don't want plutonium-powered reactors
Fyi space probes don't reactors. Like the tritium I keep next to my bed, and the isotope in your smoke alarm, it just sits there slowing releasing a little energy. Carrots are the same.
For more fun facts that might interest an environmentally concious person , check out one of Patrick Moore's articles about nuclear energy vs the status quo.
I don't think you realise just how indestructible a nuclear battery is, the one on Cassini was designed to withstand a crash that might have occurred on it's slingshot flyby of earth (fortunately we didn't get to test that claim). Testing is done by firing the battery from an artillery gun directly into a solid steel wall several feet thick. What happened to Antares would have merely burnt the paint off the outside a nuclear battery. Basically the only way to get hurt by one of them is to be unlucky enough to be hit on the head with it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Rosetta/Philae returned to Earth three times for gravity boosts. Each time it was going at speeds which would guarantee its destruction if it hit the deeper parts of the atmosphere. Had this happened and Philae had carried an RTG, it would have been the end of ESA due to the public outcry, and NASA would likely be in public relations trouble too.
There are places for RTGs, but Rosetta was not it. Philae may have died prematurely, but ESA is alive to try again.
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Living creatures are already injesting a lot more radioactive material than few kg of dust in that scenario. If you ever eat carrots, potatos, or other root crops you're injesting far more radioactive material - by several orders of magnitude. Bananas also.
Radiation has been here far longer than humans have. It wasn't scary until The China Syndrome.
I was speaking generically, since the parent made a generic point. Let's look at Philae in particular. The probe gets about 32W peak at 3AU. Insolation (W/m2) is roughly 1300W at 1 AU outside the atmosphere. At 3 AU, it's about 150 W. At 20% efficiency, in order to get roughly 30W, the probe needs to have a minimum 1 m2 facing the sun. But since only about 1/3-1/4 of the probe is exposed to sunlight when plastering the panels to the probe's body, there are about 3m2 surface area. That's also what we get from its dimension (about 1m x 1m x 0.8m). A 32W RTG would generate about 600W of waste heat, something that is easy to radiate over 3m2 into space, assuming reasonable operating temperatures for the probe (and actually, a smaller RTG is sufficient).
In fact those numbers generalize: no matter how large or small you scale this, radiating heat from an RTG is going to require less surface area than getting the same amount of power from solar cells.
And there doesn't need to be. Philae contains a 1000Wh disposable battery, a 140Wh rechargeable battery, and 32W-peak solar cells. The 1000Wh battery is intended to discharge 60h at an average of 16W. That tells you that pretty much the entire electrical system could be replaced with a 16W RTG (and a small rechargeable battery or supercapacitor for peak loads if needed).
At typical RTG efficiencies of 3-5W / kg, that means you're somewhere around 3-5kg for an RTG capable of powering the entire probe for a few decades (that includes maybe 100-200g Pu238), generating about 150W of waste heat.
The conclusion is that an RTG would likely have been technically superior to the current power design in pretty much every respect: weight, surface area, reliability, simplicity. The only reasons for not using an RTG are cost and politics (and the cost part itself is largely due to politics too).
I was ignorantly assuming that they'd do everything they could to insure the accomplishment of the mission. I realize how foolish I was now.
Yes, that is a very foolish assumption. Even if they spent a quadrillion euros, they still could not do everything to ensure success. Real life involves tradeoffs. Most people learn this by the time they are adults.
Precisely, no plan in the history of planning has survived contact with reality undamaged. He should brush up on the concept of diminishing returns which is basically what you are talking about. There are other interesting places to visit and blowing your budget on one mission is dumb.
Basically the only way to get hurt by one of them is to be unlucky enough to be hit on the head with it.
Having it fall in your backyard and grabbing it by the terminals might tingle a little as well.
How is this possible, a comment with hate and false information is modded "Insightful"? RTG design from the 70s, "SNAP-19", would have been enough for Philae, adding whopping seven hundred GRAMS of extra weight.
The precaution principle doesn't apply to nuclear reactors. Their pros and cons are well understood. The fact we are running old reactors is easy to blame on hippies but it's not the hippies who failed to build them. They're an easy scape-goat. Why do you really think we're left with old dangerous reactors, any one of which might cause a nuclear accident, making the public even more wary of nuclear power? Who gains from us sticking with fossil fuels? It's not a small minority of tree huggers. It's the same group that gains from global warming denial. The same group that gains from wars in the Middle East. Do you need a hint? Yeah, let's scapegoat each other, particularly lets scapegoat anybody who cares about the future of the planet. Don't want those people listened to, or we might start taking this "not using so much oil" thing seriously someday.
we don't want plutonium-powered reactors on an exploding rocket
Back up a bit, who's the "we"?
I recall seeing testing footage for the RTG in the Cassini probe, among other things the tests involved a large artillery gun and a steel wall a few feet thick. Cassini was particularly controversial because it made a 'sling shot' flyby of earth at a much greater speed than escape velocity. From the tests I saw in the doco decades ago the worst thing that could possibly happen with an RTG is that it falls from the sky directly onto someone's head. Far from being anti-nuke, I'm actually interested the idea of "pebble bed" reactors (materials research is what's needed there). I'm also in favour of "full life cycle" nuclear power as practised in some parts of the EU. I don't know of a -science based- environmentalist/hippie/greenie who thinks otherwise. I've held these views since the early 90's, I'm not alone either, James Lovelock and some other influential greenies expressed similar opinions in the early 2000's
I speak to you today as a scientist and as the originator of Gaia Theory, the earth's system science which describes a self regulating planet which keeps its temperature and its chemical composition always favourable for life. I care deeply about the natural world, but as a scientist I consider that the earth has now reached a state profoundly dangerous to all of us and to our civilisation. And this view is shared by scientists around the world. Unfortunately, governments, especially in Europe, appear to listen less to scientists than they do to Green political parties and to Green lobbies. Now, I am a green myself, so I know that these greens are well intentioned, but they understand people a lot better than they understand the earth, and consequently they recommend inappropriate remedies and action. Lovelock 2005.
Disclaimer: According to my parents I became a Hippie back in 1976. Like any other social group, "Hippies" in general are reasonable people if you stop insulting them and feeding them on bullshit.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The entire system is designed to operate in peak loads much of the time with long idle periods between, you can't downsize the battery that much.
And RTGs are heavy compared to their output in the inner solar system. A SNAP-19 fits the generation bill (30 watts at beginning of life) but that's 12 kilograms, which is almost certainly heavier than the solar panels.
But the real reasion is, what others have mentioned, cost. And no, it's not a case of "the cost part itself is largely due to politics", it's that plutonium-238 is simply expensive, period. You're talking a product only produced in a few parts of the world from a raw material (neptunium-237) that's only extracted in a few parts of the world in very small quantities from a raw material (nuclear fuel rods) that's already very expensive and difficult to transport. The neptunium takes years to accumulate in its reactor and must be handled with extreme safety protocols during the extraction, and properly secured against misuse. It then must be irradiated for long periods of time, converting it one atomic collision at a time to plutonium 238 using a tremendous amount of energy. Only then can the plutonium be extracted - and once again, you're talking the need for extreme safety protocols during the process, and proper security. None of that is "politics", it's simply the way it is plus very rational handling procedures.
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No, it's the solar wind turbines that are killing them. We should be burning good old-fashioned Space Coal instead.
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Except that you are missing the fact that a nuclear battery is not the same think like a nuclear reactor. You can build a nuclear battery with something around a cup full of material, whereas a nuclear reactor needs a significant larger amount of material. Also it is funny how you mention Fukushima, the health effects in this incident where rather minor. There are chemical industrial accidents with significant higher casualty rates than that. If you mentioned Chernobyl you may have had a point, but not with Fukushima.
Or you could read the article (psht this is SLASHDOT, what was I thinking?) and the papers it references which indicate the most likely outcome of an explosion of the craft within 1m of takeoff would still result in 0 deaths. Science, not baseless assertions.
There are existing RTGs with nearly the same mass to Philae's solar power system. It's not a big secret or anything, you can even read about them on Wikipedia, you know, if you're in to fact-checking.
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I'm sure that in the 1980s where you come from, plutonium is in every corner drugstore, but here in the 2010s it's a bit hard to come by!
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How many incidents/fatalities has the fossil fuel industry caused in its lifetime?
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I think it's got more to do with people not wanting chunks of plutonium raining down should something go wrong.
And when the engineers explain that due to the design it's virtually impossible that would ever happen, *then* is when the hysteria gets blamed for the outsiders getting panicky anyway.
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The fact we are running old reactors is easy to blame on hippies but it's not the hippies who failed to build them.
No, but they raised the costs high enough that it was no longer economically viable. The environmentalist movement is directly responsible for global warming due to blocking the switch from coal to nuclear power.