![]() ![]() ![]() The ice giants are a class of planet that, as the 2013 Planetary Science Decadal Survey stated “are… one of the great remaining unknowns in the solar system, the only class of planet that has never been explored in detail.” A Uranus Orbiter and Probe was, in fact, the third-highest priority large-class mission named by the report, but it’s clear that we won’t have such a mission in time for the 2030-2034 launch window needed (more on this in a moment). What kind of startling data might an ice giant orbiter return that Voyager 2 didn’t see in its brief encounters? Imagine if all we had of Saturn were flyby images, conceivably missing the active plume activity on Enceladus. We have flown orbital missions to every planet in the Solar System other than the two ice giants, and it’s worth considering how many questions about those worlds were suggested by the Voyager 2 flybys of Uranus and Neptune. So on to Venus, but let’s consider how the next few decades are shaping up. ![]() IVO (Io Volcano Observer) had a strong case of its own, with close flybys of the tortured geology on the most volcanically active body in the Solar System. I should also mention that we lost IVO when the four candidate missions were pared down to two. The Trident mission would have delivered imagery from Triton that upgraded the 1989 images from Voyager 2, useful indeed given the moon’s active surface, and we might have learned about the presence of a subsurface ocean. With budgets always tight, the axe must fall, and fall it has on the promising Trident.ĭiscovery-class involves small-scale missions that cost less than $500 million to develop. This is not to knock the Venus decisions this is a target that has been neglected compared to, obviously, Mars, and we’ve kept it on the back burner while exploring Jupiter, Saturn and, with a fast flyby, Pluto/Charon. The spacecraft snapped closeups of Uranus in 1986, and of Neptune in 1989.With NASA announcing that its Discovery program would fund both Davinci and Veritas, two missions to Venus, it’s worth pausing to consider where we are in the realm of Solar System exploration. NASA’s Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft ever to get anywhere near Uranus and Neptune. Green said a nuclear power source would be needed for any Uranus or Neptune mission.īefore NASA mounts a mission to either planet, Uranus and Neptune will again have to receive the planetary science community’s endorsement as top destinations in the 2022 decadal. Green said the JPL team will answer very preliminary questions: A mission’s addressable science objectives required technology development and whether the objectives are realistic given NASA’s budget outlook and short supply of nuclear power systems. No NASA mission to the ice-giants would launch until the late 2020s or 2030s the JPL-led study is intended to inform the planetary science community as it prepares to write its next 10-year science roadmap, or decadal survey, that will be published by the National Research Council around 2022, Green said. Storms on Neptune, last seen up close by Voyager 2 nearly three decades ago. The study is a long way from a NASA commitment to send a probe to either Uranus or Neptune: Largely unexplored bodies planetary scientists have long desired to observe more closely. ![]()
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