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I wonder, if you know you were launching one every six months for the next 20 years, what would the unit cost be? You might be able to use a commercial satelli
by Gravityloss 6y ago
I wonder, if you know you were launching one every six months for the next 20 years, what would the unit cost be?
You might be able to use a commercial satellite bus for example. It would be fine if some would experience failures, as there would be the next one already lined up.
Just put different instrument(s) at the end of the optical path in each. As example, Hubble has five instruments. https://hubblesite.org/mission-and-telescope/instruments https://hubblesite.org/mission-and-telescope/instruments
One could start a design from something like CHEOPS with a 30 cm mirror. https://sci.esa.int/web/cheops/-/54032-spacecraft https://sci.esa.int/web/cheops/-/54032-spacecraft
- HDMI_Cable 6y agoDo we need that many telescopes though? It seems like one only needs many 5 at any given time.
- Gravityloss 6y agoOne can already see that the existing terrestrial and space telescopes have long queues for observing time. Maybe more experimental instruments would be nice as well.
- jjk166 6y agoThere are currently 35 space-based telescopes in active service with 6 planned to launch in the next 12 months. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_telescopes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_telescopes