Neptune's weird moon Triton could get a visit from a NASA spacecraft called Trident

[Admin]

A possible new mission called Trident aims to explore Neptune's strange moon Triton.

Neptune's weird moon Triton could get a visit from a NASA spacecraft called Trident : Read more

 

[Craftsman X]

Triton for me as a destination anytime! Always been fascinated with this moon...

 

[kristianna276]

They say that being determines consciousness. I am utterly amazed by the real images captured by the Explorers, Hubble, Opportunity, Spirit and other such observatories and probes. The Explorer fly-by was awesome. We are the first generation that have real images of what the planets are like in our own solar system. Unfortunately, until we touch these place they are not part of our day to day reality. It is great for NASA to send a Trident to Triton, so we can have a better understanding of a major moon of Neptune. I know that there has been talk of sending a probe to Europa, maybe there should be a watery series of probes to see if these moons can be harvested for their watery content. If would more economical to be able to harvest water from the moons of Triton, Europa and Io, than to spend grinding water out of Luna rocks. NASA needs to ask, where will we want to be in the next 100 years? How do we envision ourselves in the next 50? What do we need to do in order to get there?

 

[Dave Maza]

13 years??? I’m really hoping the next generation of heavy lift vehicles can shorten these travel times a bit.

 

[Space Robot]

So how is it an “extended 13-day encounter”? Is it a fast fly-by like Pluto? It would be great to stay and explore for a longer time.

 

[kristianna276]

13 years??? I’m really hoping the next generation of heavy lift vehicles can shorten these travel times a bit.

the time it takes to travel from Earth to Mars is dependent on where the planet it is. We orbit the sun faster than the planet Mars where the window of opportunity exists once ever thirteen months. It is like shooting a target your passing, and aiming at a spot where it will be; not where it is. If we get there before the planet Mars gets there, then we will overshoot the plant and will be headed toward Jupiter; an even slower planet. Can we shorten the window of opportunity? It takes six months to get to Mars, if it would take four months to get to Mars; where will the planet be in four months? How fast will be have to travel; and how long would it take for us to stop? Mars has a thin atmosphere and a week gravity. The faster we go; the harder it is to stop. Unless you want to slam dance onto the Martian surface.

 

[rkramp]

I thought of something, for sending probes to the outer planets, like for orbiting them, that's planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. That can of course also be for going to Neptune's moon Triton. I would have mentioned it in the Uranus Orbiter? thread, but it was closed for comments.
With current technology of rockets and probes, these need to have large retro-boosters attached to them. That's because of those planets being so distant. Planet Uranus for instance is about seven times further from the sun than planet Jupiter, and planet Neptune about twice as far as planet Uranus. So, when approaching the destination, the retro-boosters fire, in order to slow it down into orbit, and falling down into the planet. The retro-boosters then detaching. The probes could also have coverings over them, with the boosters attached to those. When the boosters detach, the coverings also do.
When the Horizons probe went to planet Pluto it was going too fast to go into orbit, so just did a flyby, and it still took nine years. So, having wanted it to be going slow to go into orbit, probably would have taken about 24 years - way too long. Hence, those booster rockets for such orbital probes.

 

[Lovethrust]

The SLS could get a nuclear powered orbiter to Neptune in around 3 years if my memory serves correctly!