SpaceX and Space Observatories

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mrmorris

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I've thought for some time that the Falcon1 would be an excellent platform for launching a small space observatory. With the (theoretical) upgraded lift capacity of the Falcon 1e, it seems an even better match. The primary mirror could only be about 1.5 meters in diameter, but this would still make for a very capable scope -- even if not in the league of Hubble or JWST. With the article a few weeks ago about NASA indicating that it does not have the funds to comply with the congressional mandate that 90% of NEO's be tracked, I took my musing about SpaceX and small space observatories to another level.

Designing, constructing, launching, and operating space observatories is expensive, there is no doubt. The low launch costs of the Falcon1 only touch one aspect of the four. However, if instead of launching a single space observatory, the design, once made, was used to build and launch several observatories -- the first two costs would shrink dramatically on a per-observatory basis. The incremental cost of building and launching additional ones would be a small fraction of what it would take to design and build a one-off.

Working under that thought, let's carry it a bit further. Let's say that NASA undertakes to design the most capable scope possible that can be launched to a sun-synchronous orbit by the Falcon 1e (higher would be nicer, but since Hubble can operate from SSO, it's obviously feasible). NASA solicits partners in the project: universities in the US, ESA, JAXA, even individual countries. The partners will contribute funds to 'purchase' one of the scopes to be launched. In the case of US universities, the incremental cost of building an additional observatory would be heavily subsidized. Less so if the 'buyer' was a country (wouldn't Brazil or Spain or Australia like to have a 'national' space observatory?). In return, the 'buyer' agrees that 'their' observatory will spend a portion of its time tracking NEOs, with the data shared with NASA and the remaining time would be used for their own projects. Since the astronomers at the universities/countries/etc. performing the observations are not in the employ of NASA, it cuts down on the operating costs for the NEO tracking network.

What kind of discoveries might a network of ten, twenty, or thirty such observatories come up with? If the scopes were built with the ability to perform interferometric observations of the same targets, they could conceivably generate results that outshine Hubble or JWST -- especially if some of these scopes were launched (on something larger than the 1e) to the leading and trailing trojan points like the STEREO spacecraft.
 
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mj1

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It is this type of out of the box thinking that gives me hope for the future. NASA is an organzation whose time has past. How disappointing they have been. Just look at that Ares/Constellation project. It's nothing more than a dusted off version of Apollo. I hope they don't waste another penny on it. I expected MUCH more from them after all these years. They put all of their eggs in that white elephant of a shuttle basket and here we are. Thank God for companies like SpaceX who can and will do more than NASA and do it better, faster, and much MUCH cheaper. Perhaps we should look to privatize most if not all of our space program. We definitely are getting more bang for the buck.

As for the your great idea concerning NEO's, I say let get as many of these obsevatories up there as we can. NASA can administer them once they are in space, but use the private sector to launch them where possible. If there is a company that can do that cheaply, it's SpaceX. This would be a nice challenge for them. The volume of launches that something like that will provide would only make them do an even better job of launching. :idea:
 
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