- #1
PicnicDoctor
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- TL;DR Summary
- How feasible is it to track the weather on every planet at the same level of detail we do for Earth.
I was curious about how much we could advance planetary science with the amount we are spending (and planning to spend) on the SLS. Specifically, I want us to increase the number of climates we study from basically Earth to every planet in the solar system.
It looks like polar orbiting satellites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_satellite#Polar_orbiting) would be the most efficient to monitor a planet. If they can act as communication relays or help with coordinating future probes, all the better. Seems like 4 is a good number of these for earth. Looking at JPSS-1 the mass is 2294 kg. The math lines up pretty good so that 4 satellites for 1 falcon heavy mission, given my assumptions that follow.
16,800 kg payload to Mars expendable * 0.70 to factor in reusable instead = 11760 kg. Assuming a payload to Mars would be about the same with gravity assists to anywhere else in solar system. Falcon heavy launch cost of approximately $100 million reusable.
So assuming 4 is the minimum and then extrapolating linearly we get:
That comes to 31 falcon heavy missions with launch costs of 3.1 billion dollars. The JPSS program on Earth seems to cost about $1 billion a year to operate, I'm going to assume it will be more efficient scaled up and be ~ .5 billion per planet (.5 * 7) - so total operating/building costs of 3.5 billion a year.
I made a lot of assumptions (and some numbers totally up), but it does seem like monitoring every planet in our solar system at Earth like weather detail, is in the same cost order of magnitude as the SLS program ($35 billion estimate to 2025?).
Would love to know: which of my assumptions are the worst; what you think of the idea; if you know of anyone who is proposing we do something like this - even to just say Mars. Thanks for reading!
It looks like polar orbiting satellites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_satellite#Polar_orbiting) would be the most efficient to monitor a planet. If they can act as communication relays or help with coordinating future probes, all the better. Seems like 4 is a good number of these for earth. Looking at JPSS-1 the mass is 2294 kg. The math lines up pretty good so that 4 satellites for 1 falcon heavy mission, given my assumptions that follow.
16,800 kg payload to Mars expendable * 0.70 to factor in reusable instead = 11760 kg. Assuming a payload to Mars would be about the same with gravity assists to anywhere else in solar system. Falcon heavy launch cost of approximately $100 million reusable.
So assuming 4 is the minimum and then extrapolating linearly we get:
planet | radius | # of satellites | number of falcon heavy missions |
Jupiter | 139,822 km | 44 | 11 |
Saturn | 116,464 km | 36 | 9 |
Uranus | 50,724 km | 16 | 4 |
Neptune | 49,248 km | 16 | 4 |
Earth | 12,756 km | 4 | n/a |
Venus | 12,104 km | 4 | 1 |
Mars | 6,780 km | 4 | 1 |
Mercury | 4,780 km | 4 | 1 |
That comes to 31 falcon heavy missions with launch costs of 3.1 billion dollars. The JPSS program on Earth seems to cost about $1 billion a year to operate, I'm going to assume it will be more efficient scaled up and be ~ .5 billion per planet (.5 * 7) - so total operating/building costs of 3.5 billion a year.
I made a lot of assumptions (and some numbers totally up), but it does seem like monitoring every planet in our solar system at Earth like weather detail, is in the same cost order of magnitude as the SLS program ($35 billion estimate to 2025?).
Would love to know: which of my assumptions are the worst; what you think of the idea; if you know of anyone who is proposing we do something like this - even to just say Mars. Thanks for reading!