The Triton Hopper is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) project to design a mission to not merely land, but repeatedly fly across the surface of Triton, utilizing the volatile surface ices (primarily nitrogen) as propellant for a radioisotope-heated thermal rocket engine to launch across the surface and explore all the moon's varied terrain. An engineering design study of the vehicle and mission was done. With a calculated range of 20 km per hop, equator-to-pole mobility can be achieved over a primary mission duration of 2 years. Using Nuclear Electric Propulsion for the transfer vehicle, the same concept can be applied for a mission to the surface of Pluto.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Missions to Triton and Pluto using a Hopper Vehicle with In-Situ Refueling


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    International Astronautical Congress (IAC) Conference ; 2019 ; Washington, DC, United States


    Publication date :

    2019-10-21


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    Triton, Pluto and Charon

    Cruikshank, D. P. | NTRS | 1990


    Triton, Pluto and Charon

    Cruikshank, D.P. | Elsevier | 1989


    NEP Missions to Pluto

    Lipinski, R. J. / Institute for Space and Nuclear Power Studies | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2002


    Condensation of Nitrogen: Implications for Pluto Triton

    Duxbury, N. S. / Brown, R. H. / Anicich, V. | NTRS | 1997


    Mars Exploration with a Self-Refueling Hopper

    Landis, Geoffrey A. / Linne, Diane | NTRS | 2000