A successful design was developed, one with many advantages over the original mission. The time spent in orbit was more evenly spread over the region being investigated. The radiation close was significantly lower and the mission did not rely on gravity assist at the moon and thus did not have to make measurements that far out in the tail. A spacecraft design was developed that keeps interference from the engines to a minimum. The design however was quite specific for four spacecraft. It could not be easily scaled to five spacecraft for example. One problem was discovered that is a concern for all similar missions. Inter-spacecraft communication can determine the spacing of the vehicles easily and to the accuracy required. However, the orientation of the polyhedron with the spacecraft at its vertices is not well known for small separations. Ground station range measurements give the line of sight location well but not the angle around that vector.
Design Study for a Global Magnetospheric Dynamics Mission
1999
pages
Report
No indication
English
Aeronomy , Unmanned Spacecraft , Design analysis , Research and development , Gravitation , Spacecraft design , Planetary magnetospheres , Technologies , Spacing , Spacecraft communication , Rangefinding , Position(Location) , Polyhedrons , Navigation , Moon , Line of sight , Constellations , Apexes
The Magnetospheric Mapping Mission
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|Magnetospheric MultiScale Mission (MMS) Overview
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