A mission to return several kilograms of cometary nucleus material to Earth is described. The total delta-v requirement of this mission amounts to 40 km per sec. It can be produced by the combination of a launch vehicle that puts the spacecraft on its cometary transfer trajectory; an electric or ion propulsion system that enables the spacecraft to rendezvous with the comet, and to return to the Earth's solar orbit after the cometary rendezvous; a chemical propulsion system that permits the spacecraft to maneuver in the vicinity of the comet; an orbital transfer vehicle that meets the returning spacecraft in the Earth's solar orbit and takes it back into a low Earth orbit; and an Earth-return vehicle that retrieves the cometary samples to Earth. Comet Wild 2 is a suitable candidate during its 1997 perihelion passage.
Comet Nucleus Sample Return Mission with Electrically Propelled Spacecraft
1986
10 pages
Report
No indication
English
A comet nucleus sample return mission
NTRS | 1984
|A comet nucleus sample return mission
NTRS | 1987
|A comet nucleus sample return mission
AIAA | 1984
|