2 ms·
Getting home requires no additional fuel if using a free-return trajectory and you don't want to be there for long. Jones, Drew Ryan, 2016, "Trajectories for f
by eesmith 4y ago
Getting home requires no additional fuel if using a free-return trajectory and you don't want to be there for long.
Jones, Drew Ryan, 2016, "Trajectories for flyby sample return at Saturn's moons", https://hdl.handle.net/2014/46163 https://hdl.handle.net/2014/46163, Root, V1 at https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=53873&version=1.0 https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=53873&versi...
> Here an alternative and novel mission concept is analyzed to return a sample from either Titan or Enceladus, without capturing at Saturn. Instead, ballistic free return trajectories are sought which also incur a close encounter of the icy moon. The spacecraft could sample a plume (or upper atmosphere) during the hyperbolic flyby.
The time frames are on the order of 20 years.
OTOH, you would only have a few dozen hours near the planet. ("This 16 year mission, has the Titan flyby occurring about 10 hours prior to Saturn closest approach").