NASA’s First Three Exploration Technology Demo Missions Have a Dual Use
According to Spaceflight Now, NASA has chosen three technology demonstration missions to fly later this decade. The technologies to be demonstrated are a solar sail, a precise atomic clock, and a laser optical communications system.
Though each of these technologies are said to be useful for deep space exploration, none of demonstration missions will fly on actual exploration missions. The strategy is to fly the missions in Earth orbit in the case of the atomic clock and the laser optical communications systems, and at one of the Lagrange points in the case of the solar sail. The actual tests would apply to applications other than conducting exploration missions, making them dual use technologies.
The solar sail, to be developed by L’garde, will be 15,000 square feet, much larger than any previous solar sail mission. The mission would test the ability of a solar sail to place and maintain NOAA satellite used to detect solar storms three million miles away from the Earth, which would increase the warning time for such storms from 15 minutes currently to 45 minutes.
A solar sail, which uses photons emitted by the sun to accelerate it without use of rocket fuel, would be useful for deep space missions. Solar sail craft could, for example, carry cargo from Earth to a Mars colony. The cost for the demonstration flight is $20 million.
The atomic clock, ten times more accurate than current systems, developed and operated by scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, would fly on an Iridium communications satellite. The atomic clock would use GPS signals to precisely determine orbits, thus improving on the current radio based navigation systems. Such technology would be useful for navigation of deep space missions as well. The cost will be $60 million.
The laser optical communication system would fly on a yet to be determined communications satellite to geosynchronous orbit around the equator. The system, developed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, would be able to transmit huge amounts of data and images faster than the current radio based systems.
The laser optical system would eventually supplant the current radio based relay satellite system in low Earth orbit. But the system has obvious applications for deep space missions, returning information from distant worlds at a far greater rate and volume than currently possible. The cost will be $170 million.
Each of the missions will piggyback on existing launches with a view of restraining costs. Nevertheless, the short term prospect of any of the missions getting off the ground is in doubt, considering the current, chaotic budget situation. However the strategy of selecting technologies that have an immediate, practical application as well as for space exploration is a sound one, considering the lack of focus in the current exploration program. Had more money been available, each of these technologies might have flown on a single, deep space mission, however, demonstrating how they could advance the art of space exploration more clearly.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasas-first-three-exploration-technology-demo-missions-dual-172000164.html
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