Problems for a flyby mission of the Sun

Computer Science – Performance

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

HELIOS A/B, the first missions inside the orbit of Mercury towards the Sun were launched from Cape Kennedy in Dec. 1974 and Jan. 1976. The interplanetary cruise in the ecliptic plane carried the HELIOS solar probe in elliptic orbits around the Sun to a perihelion as close as 0.3 Astronomical Units from the Sun (approx. 45 million km). Twelve scientific experiments (ten active and two passive) investigated physical phenomena in interplanetary space originating from the Sun and from solar activity in general. The design and development of the HELIOS solar probe presented a number of engineering highlights, the most outstanding of which was the design of the thermal control system. The need for a highly reliable spacecraft with considerable operational constraints as determined by orbit and mission characteristics, e.g. communication distance up to 300 million km, black-out periods without telecommunication link for up to 65 days, extended mission period of 15 18 months, etc. has made the solution of many technical problems very intricate. Problems resulting from a realistic simulation of the environment in which the spacecraft was expected to operate, performance requirements which were not “state of the art” at the beginning of the development and problems resulting from quality defects in the hardware discovered during testing as well as the problems on design and operation capabilities gave reasons for severe concerns about the ability to meet the primary mission objectives within the schedule and financial constraints. The paper describes the processing of the major technical problems experienced from analysis to the course of action taken to eliminate a negative impact on the mission leading to launch readyness for the originally planned date. It is shown that the basic HELIOS design is essentially valid for a solar mission into a distance closer than 0.3 AU to the Sun.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Problems for a flyby mission of the Sun does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Problems for a flyby mission of the Sun, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Problems for a flyby mission of the Sun will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1845325

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.