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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

Criminy. Why aren't we launching more of these probes? With Musk's cheap rockets, we could launch a fleet of them.

The trajectory was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity based on the dynamics of our solar system, and surely the relevant experts will take advantage of the next similar opportunities. It's also almost a miracle that the probes have lasted this long. They used analogue electronics and if they launched ten years later, they would have more modern electronics and would probably have failed by now. And it's not possible to simply argue to use older designs to last longer in a new mission, because you would give up multiple orders of magnitude of data collection.

It's not a simple matter of any current launcher being cheaper so we should launch a bunch more.

> And it's not possible to simply argue to use older designs to last longer in a new mission, because you would give up multiple orders of magnitude of data collection.

Why not both?

The heavy parts of the probe, then or now, were presumably not the electronics themselves so much as the physical structure, the power system, etc etc.

If you were designing a probe to last fifty, a hundred years, why not include series of fallbacks of the electronics to simpler and more basic systems, so that you could still get something out of it, after the primary state-of-the-art electronics fail?

This is like asking why a Tesla model S can't revert to a Ford model T and keep functioning for decades (without a technician allowed to touch the car).

If I remember correctly Voyager benefitted from a particular alignment of the planets to get multiple slingshot boosts from gravity wells.

Part of the appeal of the mission was that it will be a very long time before we could possibly do this again because the planets won't line up correctly and we have no technology to speed the probes up to the velocities that the voyager probes achieved.

> Voyager benefitted from a particular alignment of the planets to get multiple slingshot boosts from gravity wells.

What exactly does that get us? It gets further into space faster? It travels faster? Cheaper to launch?

I mean if it just means it leaves the solar system 20 years faster or something then it seems like cheaper launches far outweigh those favorable conditions.

Looks like once you escape earths orbit at 11km/s, you still need another 30km/s delta-v to then escape the solar system

I thought it was 12 km/s. 30km/s is what’s required to fall into the sun, which is considerably more than escaping the solar system.

Why do we need any additional speed to escape the solar system?

Because the Sun has its own gravity well you need to get out of. Lots of things could be fast enough to escape the pull of the Earth but not the Sun (like all the other things besides Earth that orbit it)

I love the fact that one of them has launched radially and another tangentially, it will be interesting to look at the orbit of each Voyager when they finish a full rotation around the Sun.

You need a lot of speed to go into space really fast.

When you fly your spacecraft really close to a planet and let it get influenced by its gravity, you let the planet transfer some of its massive amounts of kinetic energy into your spacecraft, which can add to its kinetic energy (and also help the spacecraft change direction)

You're essentially stealing some kinetic energy from planets to sling your spacecraft faster.

The delta-v for a mission like this is pretty incredible. Voyager 1 is still traveling at about 17km/s away from the sun. That's not much less than when it left Earth despite traveling so far away from the Sun... only because of the special gravity assists it did on the way out. There are some things that even money can't solve :)

Compared to a planet, a spacecraft is almost negligible in both weight and capability to accelerate in space. Ion engines are pretty cool though; Maybe we can do it today but it will take a lot longer to get there. Of course, if it takes too long, we may not have a viable spacecraft by the time it gets there. Furthermore, even if do have a viable spacecraft, we might not have the knowhow to work with the technology that we sent in the first place.

Trying to wrap my head around that speed. It could go the distance of the Earth to the moon in a little less than 6 hours and 20 minutes.

This is the Project Lyra [1], where a UK-registered not-for-profit company suggest sending a spacecraft to catch-up with ʻOumuamua object that pass thru solar system in 2017, by using orbital mechanic. Spacecraft set off at right window would speed up using gravity assist maneuver [2] around objects in the solar system and save a lot of fuel to hopefully reach 'Oumuamua in 26 years

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Lyra

[2] - https://vid.pr0gramm.com/2023/12/11/99b60d87a3679fe0-vp9.mp4

Voyager took advantage of a specific alignment of planets that allowed it to make many consecutive gravity assists.

I know. But still, just flying around the solar system can be endlessly productive. Does anyone think we've learned all we can about the solar system?

There's plenty of things flying around the solar system :) though: ear hear, I second the sentiment

Intentional eggcorn?

"To provide a comprehensive and precise list of space probes launched in the past 10 years (from 2013 to 2023), it's essential to highlight that space probes are designed for various missions, including planetary exploration, solar observation, and astrophysical studies. Here's a structured overview of notable space probes launched during this period:

2013

MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution): Launched by NASA, this probe is aimed at studying the Martian atmosphere to understand how it lost its water and atmosphere over time.

2014

Hayabusa2: Launched by JAXA, the Japanese space agency, this asteroid sample-return mission targeted the asteroid Ryugu.

2015

DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory): A joint mission by NASA, NOAA, and the U.S. Air Force, DSCOVR studies the solar wind and its impact on Earth.

2016

OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer): NASA's mission to asteroid Bennu for a sample return to Earth.

2017

Parker Solar Probe: Launched by NASA to study the outer corona of the Sun.

2018

BepiColombo: A joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and JAXA to Mercury. InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport): A NASA lander to study Mars' interior.

2019

Chang'e 4: A Chinese lunar exploration mission that achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon.

2020

Mars 2020 (Perseverance Rover): NASA's rover to explore Mars, seeking signs of past life and collecting samples for possible return to Earth. Tianwen-1: China's mission that includes an orbiter, lander, and rover to Mars. Hope Probe: The United Arab Emirates' mission to study the Martian atmosphere.

2021

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): An international collaboration led by NASA, with significant contributions from ESA and the Canadian Space Agency, JWST is designed to observe the earliest galaxies and stars formed after the Big Bang."

-ChatGPT

Space exploration is definitely still a thing.

I was under the impression that it took advantage of a rare alignment of planets to not only get a speed boost but also pass by all the planets to get photos of them.

In theory we could just do an arbitrary number of consecutive gravity assists between say earth and mars to get the speed to travel past a single planet to exmaine it and then travel on out of the solar system.

With the cost savings of the new Starship rocket, the increased scale of probes that it would enable, the increase in processing and sensing technology, and the lowered cost that would come from mass production of many probes we could probably end up with a more cost effective solution this way, even if we're sending more probes.

Venus and Earth are more often used compared to Mars. The window is more frequent, it's more massive, and takes less delta-v to get to.

While I fully support more craft being sent out of the solar system, we are making some mind blowing discoveries in the solar system itself. I recommend watching a good video (or article with images) about what we discovered with Cassini.

Moore's law of progress, co-incendentally this also relates to Musk's cheap rockets also.

Should we do science now or wait 18 months for innovation to double and try then.

I think launching stuff with nuclear RTGs would probably be met with red tape :(. Even if they are basically impossible to destroy even with a failed launch. I'm sure it will happen again but sadly not as fast or as often as I wish we would.

Uhhh lots of stuff is launched with RTGs still. Curiosity is powered by an RTG.

Almost everything uses RTGs now if it's going to be far from the sun (like past mars).

Ahhh I heard there was controversy for some launches. I'm very glad I'm wrong, I think RTGs are so awesome and the closest we have to sci Fi energy generation in space.

Wise words here

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