3 ms·
Window wise are you talking about slingshotting off Jupiter? The Voyager 2 "grand tour" type alignment only happens once every 200 years or so.
by iso1631 5y ago
Window wise are you talking about slingshotting off Jupiter? The Voyager 2 "grand tour" type alignment only happens once every 200 years or so.
- Sharlin 5y agoI believe that's what the GP means, yes. With a future superheavy launch vehicle, however, a tandem mission could be possible, with separate Neptune and Uranus probes being inserted into different trajectories by the same LV/upper stage. Both spacecraft would still do a Jupiter slingshot but at different times.
- jmyeet 5y agoVoyager launched on a couple of Grand Tour alignments [1]. One was Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto. The other was Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. And yes, that occurs every ~200 years. But that's not really relevant for reaching Uranus. That requires a more common alignment, which is with Jupiter. Jupiter orbits every ~12 years. Uranus orbits every 84 years. Jupiter is the vast bulk of mass in the Solar System that isn't the Sun, which is why it's such a good slingshot. So there's a window every ~12 years. If we miss the early 2030s window, we'll be waiting to at least the mid 2040s. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour_program