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Venus and Titan have in common that probes landing there tend to only operate a few minutes before failing due to the extreme conditions. A helicopter sounds g

Venus and Titan have in common that probes landing there tend to only operate a few minutes before failing due to the extreme conditions. A helicopter sounds great, but perhaps it would make sense to try to simply make a probe that can stay alive there long enough to do anything other than send a couple pictures back.

maxxxxx 7y ago
That's what this is. It's much easier to heat something in the cold of Titan than to cool something in the heat of Venus.
Rooster61 7y ago
> Venus and Titan have in common that probes landing there tend to only operate a few minutes before failing due to the extreme conditions. Venus, definitely. Titan though? Huygens is the only probe that's ever touched down there, and it's operational life was tied to its battery life and the fact that Cassini wouldn't be around very long to listen to it. Cassini was on a flyby trajectory, not an orbit around Titan, so as soon as the orbiter went over the horizon, that was it. Outfitting Huygens with enough power to stay on for future flybys would require MUCH more power, a job for which only an RTG would be appropriate since solar is out of the question that far out/under that atmosphere, and batteries just flat out don't last that long. Nothing about the moon itself prevented a long operational life.
Robotbeat 7y ago
This is not true. The only reason the previous probe (Huygens) only lasted a few hours is because it was battery powered (and the battery wasn't particularly large). This probe will carry a power source powered by the radioactive decay of Plutonium 238 (virtually all the radiation being alpha particles, which are easily blocked by the casing of the power supply and thus will not hurt the electronics or ground crew) that can provide 50-100 Watts of power for years or even decades.
- UncleSlacky 7y ago
  As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, before Huygens we expected that the surface might well be entirely liquid, giving us at best only a few minutes to run the experiments and return the data before it sank. There was no point carrying too much battery capacity in that case.
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    No. Huygens was designed to float and last hours. The battery capacity is why it lasted so short.

maxxxxx 7y ago

That's what this is. It's much easier to heat something in the cold of Titan than to cool something in the heat of Venus.

Rooster61 7y ago

> Venus and Titan have in common that probes landing there tend to only operate a few minutes before failing due to the extreme conditions. Venus, definitely. Titan though? Huygens is the only probe that's ever touched down there, and it's operational life was tied to its battery life and the fact that Cassini wouldn't be around very long to listen to it. Cassini was on a flyby trajectory, not an orbit around Titan, so as soon as the orbiter went over the horizon, that was it. Outfitting Huygens with enough power to stay on for future flybys would require MUCH more power, a job for which only an RTG would be appropriate since solar is out of the question that far out/under that atmosphere, and batteries just flat out don't last that long. Nothing about the moon itself prevented a long operational life.

Robotbeat 7y ago

This is not true. The only reason the previous probe (Huygens) only lasted a few hours is because it was battery powered (and the battery wasn't particularly large). This probe will carry a power source powered by the radioactive decay of Plutonium 238 (virtually all the radiation being alpha particles, which are easily blocked by the casing of the power supply and thus will not hurt the electronics or ground crew) that can provide 50-100 Watts of power for years or even decades.

UncleSlacky 7y ago
As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, before Huygens we expected that the surface might well be entirely liquid, giving us at best only a few minutes to run the experiments and return the data before it sank. There was no point carrying too much battery capacity in that case.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  No. Huygens was designed to float and last hours. The battery capacity is why it lasted so short.