Rand:
I’d be real interested as to whether your independent astrodynamic
analysis—at the spreadsheet level—could confirm that 60 klicks per second
will catch it in about 20 years and that a plane change at Jupiter followed
by a solar gravity assist and some makeup electric propulsion would allow a
flyby.
Bill
On Fri, Feb 26, 2021 at 3:35 PM Rand Simberg <simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I think there is scope for a lot of private missions in the solar
system. Is Milner still planning an Enceladus mission?
On 2/26/21 2:29 PM, William Claybaugh wrote:
Since we are not talking about homebuilt rockets, I was wondering if
we might talk about homebuilt space missions:
A top level analysis suggests it would take about 60 Km / sec to catch
Oumuamua in about 20 years.
Another very top level analysis suggests that a gravity assist at
Jupiter (solely to turn the plane from near ecliptic to near that of
Oumuamua; near to but less than 90 degrees) followed by a 50 solar
radii assist at the Sun (Parker is doing 10 radii as I recall but it
carries way too much heat shield for this mission) can pretty
certainly get to 50 km / sec.
One of NASA Glenn’s Stirling cycle RTG’s tied to an existing
commercial electric thruster appears capable of making up the
difference with a big fuel tank.
Assuming a New Horizons-like spacecraft, but much smaller, a flyby
seems possible based on this very top level analysis.
I’d be real interested in helpful comments.
Bill