Return to the Kuiper Belt: Launch Opportunities from 2025 to 2040

Abstract

Nomenclature AU = astronomical unit, average Earth -Sun distance B = impact parameter C3 = excess launch energy ∆V = change in velocity required to alter a spacecraft's trajectory KBO = Kuiper Belt Object PC = plane crossing r p = planet radius r q = distance from a planet at periapse = gravitational constant * planet mass ! = arrival velocity of a spacecraft = angle between incoming and outgoing velocity vectors during a swingby Preliminary spacecraft trajectories for 45 Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and Pluto suitable for launch between 2025 and 2040 are presented. These 46 objects comprise all objects with H magnitude < 4.0 or which have received a name from the International Astronomical Union as of May 2018. Using a custom Lambert solver, trajectories are modeled after the New Horizons mission to Pluto-Charon, which consisted of a fast launch with a Jupiter gravity assist. In addition to searching for Earth-Jupiter-KBO trajectories, Earth-Saturn-KBO trajectories are examined, with the option to add on a flyby to either Uranus or Neptune. With a single Jupiter gravity assist, all 45 KBOs and Pluto can be reached within a 25 year maximum mission duration. A more limited number can be reached when non-Jupiter flybys are added, and the KBOs that can be reached via these alternate routes are listed. In most cases, a single Jupiter flyby is the most efficient way to get to the Kuiper Belt, but the science return from revisiting Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune may add substantial value to a mission, so alternate flybys should be considered.

International opportunities and technical challenges for the space elevator

“…In addition to their low cost, deep space missions with a space elevator would be just as fast as conventional rocket launches: trips to Mars could be completed in as little as one month, Jupiter could be reached in one year, and it would only take three years to reach Uranus (Peet 2021). These travel times compare favorably to projected transit times using a conventional rocket launch (150 days, 0.9-1.2 years, and 3.8-4.7 years, respectively) (Zangari et al 2019;Mohanalingam and Carr 2023).…”

SpiceyPy: a Pythonic Wrapper for the SPICE Toolkit

“…SpiceyPy enables scientists to utilize the full functionality of SPICE within Python and the ecosystem of visualization and scientific packages available. SpiceyPy has been utilized in peer-reviewed research (Attree et al, 2019;Behar, Nilsson, Alho, Goetz, & Tsurutani, 2017;Behar et al, 2016;Porter et al, 2018;Zangari, Finley, Alan Stern, & Tapley, 2018), masters and doctoral theses (Albin, 2019;Hackett, 2019), spacecraft mission operations, as a dependency in other Python libraries (Stansby, Rai, Broll, Shaw, & others, 2019 ), and for a variety of other projects (Costa & Grass, 2018;Wilson, 2017;Wilson & Xiong, 2016).…”