An artist's image of a solar sail, one of three technologies NASA plans to advance for future deep space missions. Image Credit/NASA
NASA will invest $175 million in a trio of new technology demonstration flights that promise to hasten much more capable missions of deep space exploration by humans as well as robots.
The demo flights, which the space agency intends to undertake in 2015 and 2016, will piggy back with other payloads on commercially launched rockets as well to lower costs.
The demos will focus on laser optical communications to vastly increase the bandwidth of signal transmissions; deep space atomic clocks to improve the accuracy of spacecraft navigation; and large solar sails, which would ride on the energy of sunlight rather than traditional rocket propellants.
“These technology demonstrations mission will improve our communications, navigation and in-space propulsion capabilities, enable future missions that could not otherwise be performed and build the technological capability of America’s space industry,” said NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun, whose office announced plans for the missions this week.
The demos will involve principal investigators from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,Md., the California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory of Pasadena,Calif., and L’Garde Inc. of Tustin,Calif.,
Mission results are expected to enable NASA to pursue bolder and more sophisticated space science objectives, enable human missions to destinations beyond the International Space Station and facilitate new approaches to space operations.
Here’s a summary of what experts believe could emerge from each of these new technologies, if they can make their way into future spacecraft design.
* Laser Communications would enable transmitters of lower volume and mass than current radio frequency equipment. Optical communications use less spacecraft power and increase data rates by 10 to 100 times. This innovation would enhance the use of hyperspectral imagers and synthetic aperture radar, providing fine detail in imagery transmitted from distant planetary bodies.
For instance, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently circling the Red Planet, requires 90 minutes to transmit a single high resolution image back to Earth. With optical communications, the time would be cut to five minutes.
* Atomic clocks to enable autonomous navigation systems aboard spacecraft at distant destinations as well as improving the timing systems aboard Earth orbiting Global Positioning System satellites. Exploratory missions with this upgrade could reduce their costly reliance on NASA’s Deep Space Network for orbital determinations, while greatly improving the quantity and quality of data transmissions.
* The solar sail demonstrator will attempt to deploy a sail seven times larger than any previous mission. This technology offers a range of new capabilities.
Like orbiting garbage trucks, satellites equipped with solar sails could remove the hazardous amounts of manmade debris accumulating in Earth orbit from spent rockets and aging satellites. Future satellites could be designed with end of mission solar sails of their own to hasten their re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Solar sails might be used aboard spacecraft dedicated to solar storm prediction by enabling distant station keeping. Solar storms can disrupt telecommunications and interrupt the distribution of electricity on Earth by commercial transmission systems. Sentry spacecraft could improve the “advance notice” of disruptive solar activity headed for the Earth by 15 to 45 minutes.
Solar sails could provide a constant source of propellant less acceleration for missions headed to distant planets or even out of the solar system.