Exploring the Outer Solar System with Solar Sailing Smallsats on Fast-Transit Trajectories and In-Flight Autonomous Assembly of Advanced Science Payloads

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Turyshev, Slava G., Helvajian, Henry, Friedman, Louis D., Heinsheimer, Tom, Garber, Darren, Davoyan, Artur, Toth, Viktor T.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866929328709697536
author Turyshev, Slava G.
Helvajian, Henry
Friedman, Louis D.
Heinsheimer, Tom
Garber, Darren
Davoyan, Artur
Toth, Viktor T.
author_facet Turyshev, Slava G.
Helvajian, Henry
Friedman, Louis D.
Heinsheimer, Tom
Garber, Darren
Davoyan, Artur
Toth, Viktor T.
contents We discuss the in-flight autonomous assembly as the means to build advanced planetary science payloads to explore the outer regions of the solar system. These payloads are robotically constructed from modular parts delivered by a group of smallsats (< 20 kg) which are placed on fast solar system transfer trajectories while being accelerated by solar sail propulsion to velocities of ~10 AU/yr. This concept provides the planetary science community with inexpensive, frequent access to distant regions of the solar system with flexible, reconfigurable instruments and systems that are assembled in flight. It permits faster revisit times, rapid replenishment and technology insertions, longer mission capability with lower costs. It also increases the science capabilities of smallsats via the use of modular, redundant architectures and allows for proliferation of sensing instrumentation throughout the solar system.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2007_05623
institution arXiv
publishDate 2020
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exploring the Outer Solar System with Solar Sailing Smallsats on Fast-Transit Trajectories and In-Flight Autonomous Assembly of Advanced Science Payloads
Turyshev, Slava G.
Helvajian, Henry
Friedman, Louis D.
Heinsheimer, Tom
Garber, Darren
Davoyan, Artur
Toth, Viktor T.
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Detectors
We discuss the in-flight autonomous assembly as the means to build advanced planetary science payloads to explore the outer regions of the solar system. These payloads are robotically constructed from modular parts delivered by a group of smallsats (< 20 kg) which are placed on fast solar system transfer trajectories while being accelerated by solar sail propulsion to velocities of ~10 AU/yr. This concept provides the planetary science community with inexpensive, frequent access to distant regions of the solar system with flexible, reconfigurable instruments and systems that are assembled in flight. It permits faster revisit times, rapid replenishment and technology insertions, longer mission capability with lower costs. It also increases the science capabilities of smallsats via the use of modular, redundant architectures and allows for proliferation of sensing instrumentation throughout the solar system.
title Exploring the Outer Solar System with Solar Sailing Smallsats on Fast-Transit Trajectories and In-Flight Autonomous Assembly of Advanced Science Payloads
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Detectors
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.05623