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Exploring the Trans-Neptunian Solar System (1998) / Chapter Skim
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4 Technology Issues
Pages 36-41

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From page 36...
... TELESCOPIC OBSERVATIONS The technical challenge posed by surveys to detect KBOs is to efficiently search the sky for faint objects with parallactic motion corresponding to the trans-neptunian region. Currently, less than 0.
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From page 37...
... are plotted relative to those of the 8-meter Gemini telescope currently under construction in Hawaii, and the Space Infrared Telescope Facility scheduled for launch in 2001. Also shown are two different concepts for NASA's proposed Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST)
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From page 38...
... The ability to track will probably need to be incorporated from the earliest phases of the spacecraft design, possibly by provision of an internal steering mirror capable of tracking objects within a limited angular range without moving the entire telescope. SPACECRAFT MISSIONS The demands of exploring the outer solar system under tight fiscal constraints have led to a major change in approach to mission design, development, and operation.8 9 The high costs of sending large and heavy, spacecraft with a dozen separate scientific instruments to the giant planets (e.g., Voyager, Galileo, Cassini)
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From page 39...
... Exploration of the outer solar system will probably benefit from the testing of new technologies in spacecraft components and scientific instruments on missions to the inner solar system under the New Millennium and Discovery programs. For example, Deep Space 1, the first flight in NASA's New Millennium technology demonstration program, will test the Miniature Integrated Camera Spectrometer (an integrated camera, ultraviolet imaging spectrometer, and infrared imaging spectrometer)
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From page 40...
... 8. Science Applications International Corporation, Low-Cost Outer Planet Mission Definitions: Report to NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., 1995.
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From page 41...
... H.W. Price et al., "Pluto Express Sciencecraft System Design," IAA-L-0603, presented at the Second International Academy of Astronautics International Conference on Low-Cost Planetary Missions, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, April, 1996.
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Key Terms

  • kuiper belt
  • pluto flyby
  • pluto mission
  • space telescope
  • deep space

  • scientific instruments
  • generation space
  • space infrared
  • infrared telescope
  • mission design

  • science definition
  • telescope facility
  • definition team
  • pluto express
  • belt object

  • launch vehicle
  • telescope science
  • integrated camera
  • jet propulsion
  • applications international

  • mission development
  • faint objects
  • science applications
  • international corporation
  • primitive bodies

  • propulsion laboratory
  • development schedules
  • requiring resolving
  • efficient detector
  • technology roadmap


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