Future exploration of Saturn's moon Titan can be carried out by airships. Several lighter-than-atmosphere gas airships and passive drifting heated-atmosphere balloon designs have been studied, but a heated-atmosphere airship could combine the best characteristics of both. This work analyses the thermal design of such a heated-atmosphere vehicle, and compares the result with a lighter-than-atmosphere (hydrogen) airship design. A design tool was created to enable iteration through different design parameters of a heated-atmosphere airship (diameter, number of layers, and insulating gas pocket thicknesses) and evaluate the feasibility of the resulting airship. A baseline heated-atmosphere airship was designed to have a diameter of 6 m (outer diameter of 6.2 m), three-layers of material, and an insulating gas pocket thickness of 0.05 m between each layer. The heated-atmosphere airship has a mass of 161.9 kg. A similar mission making use of a hydrogen-filled airship would require a diameter of 4.3 m and a mass of about 200 kg. For a long-duration mission, the heated-atmosphere airship appears better suited. However, for a mission lifetime under 180 days, the less complex hydrogen airship would likely be a better option.


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    Title :

    Heated-Atmosphere Airship for the Titan Environment: Thermal Analysis


    Contributors:
    R. S. Heller (author) / G. A. Landis (author) / A. F. Hepp (author) / A. J. Colozza (author)

    Publication date :

    2012


    Size :

    9 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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