Last update: 16 December 1998
Notice: Due to budget constraints passed down by Congress, NASA headquarters regretfully announces that the mission maximum is now $75 million as was published in the Mission Proposal Guide last week. Although this may cause some minor descoping of some missions, NASA is confident that all crucial scientific goals will be met.
It is the year 2034. In the year 2014, and the Extrasolar Planet Survey program at the Daedalus Lunar Farside Observatory found yet another star in the neighborhood of the Sun which has a planetary system! Tentatively designated EPS-451, this system is now the target of a full-scale exploration program. In 2039, NASA plans to send a set of space probes to the system, and you have been assigned to teams charged with the responsibility of designing the missions. Each of the 10 teams is to propose two spacecraft which can conduct separate or combined missions. Upon receipt of all the proposals, NASA (actually, the local NASA EPS Mission Coordinator - me!) will review them and select five to fund and launch in 2039. See the EPS Mission Proposal Guide for details.
Each mission should target a planet or body (or bodies). The system is inclined edge-on to our line of sight, so that multiple planet flybys are also possible if a careful trajectory is plotted, though the planetary alignments projected for the timeframe of the mission makes only two-planet tours possible. Note that due to the small allowed payload size and total cost, only a few instruments will be able to be included on any one probe. Choose those instruments that are likely to give the best information on a particular aspect of interest for the target. Because the EPS451 system is distant, and real-time communication is impossible, an on-board artificial intellgence expert system will conduct the spacecraft operations, using guidelines that you supply for contingencies. Be sure to also include enough power generation or batteries to conduct the mission.
The goal of the EPS Mission Program is to learn as much as we can about the system. Currently, using our Lunar based observatory, we know only the orbits and approximate types of planets to be found there. Determining even the most basic parameters, such as masses, diameters, temperatures, composition, and magnetic fields of the bodies in this system will be extremely useful. It might be useful to coordinate missions with other class members.
Links to the various online resources will appear here when they are available:
See also the previous years' mission pages:
Credits: This project was based on an assignment designed by Rick Rees, and further modified for Astro 11 Fall 1996 and 1997. Most of the planet and satellite "images" were created in Bryce 2 (great program!) and processed in Adobe Photoshop. A few of the planet images were created in Fractal Design Detailer and processed in Photoshop. The rest of our original images are Copyright Steven T. Myers 1997,1998.
smyers@nrao.edu Steven T. Myers