Wrote early a small bit on this topic, but wanted to consider a bit more.
While the build smaller, less mass, more missions approach has been utilised by NASA, I imagined with some success, one has to wonder where NASA is exactly floundering on this approach? The reason why I ask this question: isn't because of the apparent lack of a readily available American low gravitational assist vehicle for ISS missions where apparently the decommissioned space shuttle had been rightly served a deserved retirement. After all, given the the huge payload that apparently needed to be, instead of dropped via module via parachute back into Earth and neither needing the something aerodynamics of a glider to touchdown at some airport base, hadn't need be so selective in the other role in so far as having a few, as opposed to potentially many more, and secondly it were a major fuel guzzler in terms of getting a low gravity orbit assist. Sadly it brings me to this other question, why are so many rockets designed on the premise of ground launches in terms of rocket propellant use? It seems if you could reduce your payloads and mass significantly enough, you could use a weather balloon to get your craft up to certain heights, and then launch having expended that much less propellant in the process, and maybe having used how much un combusted gas in the process? Is there practical reasons why, or is it merely the sort of eye candy of the rocket itself the more so prevails in social political culture demanding technological conformal standards?!
Sadly I remember having some discussion on the subject of Space shuttle technology, and the argument whether true or not were that then, because of Shuttle hardware designs, something of a desktop computer owned way back when were more powerful then actual Shuttle's on board computing systems. I weren't sure if this were true or not, but in a way it seemed somewhat plausible.
In any event considering so many rows and columns of manual consoles, having served some purpose, and maybe purposefully existing on any manned craft, any unmanned craft would dispense of just that much less volume, material and mass, doing what software could just as likely do successfully, and then considering now that technology has further miniaturised processing successfully, so that smartphone devices, rival computational processing of a desktop some several years back(?), it seems, finding cheap, low mass, high powered computational processing hardware, and memory shouldn't be a problem for a small scale space probe or craft. Then it were a matter, of getting craft stabilisations programs and equipment (the simple gyroscope would aid here, for example) installed, so that your craft weren't expending its propellant in the wrong directions sending it hopelessly tumbling all about, owing to one of Newton's laws here, where all manner of resistance in less rarefied atmospheres hadn't exist, and then making sure your could do something as simple as send and receive signals to and from such craft. Honestly not too savvy on broadcast signal types, but I imagine you could do this in a whole host of ways provided your signal transmitter were strong enough say to send a signal through the vast depths of space, and you'd probably want to make sure that your craft, had a software routine, to automatically position and orient its antenna, in case, signalling should cease, have self reboot. I'd imagine a lot more design effort could be spent in terms of software design relative hardware, it seems if you could keep this otherwise streamlined and low mass, you could pour tons of massless code into craft without the same payload expense once having existed.
You as the controller would probably need both tracking software and hardware for your probe, this would mean, in like kind an broadcasting antenna and transmitter. You'd need to be able to do this in a manner of transmitting something like digital radio I imagine, or using some sort of broadcast signal type where signal deterioration weren't a problem over greater distance relative the terrestrial bound case, not sure if this would rule out, for instance, digital visible optic transmissions here even. Ideally you might choose some signal type that required low broadcast power with low signal degradation over time and space. While you wouldn't be as limited on ground with the signal transmitter type and transmission power, the power spent in accelerating your vessel, I imagined would increase more so, the larger the transmitter type required for it. Space and mass are more so at premiums here for your craft, relative say the ample space provided in a room of a house. You'd need to have the receiving hardware with transfers both on the probe and at your base of command, signals so that they are read in some usable form (like binary) at a base, and at some point interfaced, I'd imagine to higher level language software most likely implemented.
A little more detailed at least in thoughts of tracking. Consider the problem of your craft's navigation systems. How does it know exactly where it is at relative to Earth, and how do you know where it is at when it flying through the recesses of space? Unfortunately GPS weren't going to bail you out here, so you'd need to be able to work inside and outside applicable coordinate systems, ensuring that your positions were, but what if it loses it signal, and doesn't know where home is exactly at, or something imperceptible has cropped up so that your craft is orienting its receiving dish in the wrong location. You might have a routine where home base, sends out a feeder signal, but consider the Earth rotating and you'd have to wait till the next day with your automated systems sending on a broadcast antenna a feeder a signal to reorient it when the craft were spending energy scanning in a range of oriented directions, its communication source. Hmm, then you think it would have been nice if some space engineers designed something of interplanetary navigations array, something like a beacon to help lost probes find their way back to their home planet, but probably nothing of this kind exists at present...although maybe someday something like a space bearing Positioning system will exist, but for now, likely you wouldn't be able to find the next satellite open for communicating signals to and from that you could co op for a short time transmission time, so you were left on the ground more likely sending signals to your lost probe, but even then you'd have to have scan search routines which attempted to find it. And only you might have wished having had some wider receiving dish on board your craft then had presently existed, or you might have changed to a different transmission type, which sent a broader albeit possibly weaker signal which hadn't broadcast so focally in limited field range?! In any event, for the lost probe, it seems you'd want some sort of routine which allows through broadcast and transmission, narrowing in on a position range of a probe, and the probe being able to transmit in variable ranges, so that the both you and your probe could communicate, and then maybe once some basic communications were established, you could increase focus and signal strength therein, until having reached some reception/transmission optimum?
Then power consumption. It seems the standard lithium ion battery, could last how long doing what you demanded of it, on board your probe? But these do have mass, and an array of these increase payload. Alternate solutions, maybe solar?! Maybe something else? Doubtfully, you'd have access to radioactive matter, that could potentially provide both internal heating to your equipment and serve as a power source, but at least with some ingenuity, you might think of power savings methods in terms of processing usage while in flight, and if you at least had some solar panels, you could recharge your batteries for that long flight to Mars.
And lastly fuel, maybe the probe would have an ion drives which could feed the craft subtle acceleration over longer periods of time unlike traditional propellant based drives, or you'd be dealing in traditional propellant. In the traditional case, you'd have focused burns, likely in conjunction with gravitational assists, say rounding a moon, or sun and burning as you rounding these celestial bodies so as to increase your crafts velocity and change its trajectory, so that it fly outside the once orbital period around such body of origin and in the direction of intended destination. Likely though unless anything cropped up putting your vessel out of its necessary position, once corrections were made in staging, and necessary fuel to make the journey were a go, you'd have your craft programmed automatically for the burns. Typically craft might have at least several propulsion based nozzles. Where four nozzles would control local z rotations (Euler), and a local x rotation (Euler). If one side of your craft were shown in two dimensions in say a rectangular configuration, the simplest nozzle configuration to achieve this would be a cross configuration such that one nozzle were configured near the intercept of each edge of the rectangle. You'd want to learn how to rotate your craft so as to, for instance, bleed off speed with a retrograde burn on approach to your intended destination. My understanding are that propellant based drives, often in the past, hadn't had variable drive options here. In other words, accelerations on burns aren't fixed. Meaning if you go and break, you do so at the same rate of change. Generally though with ample space, and a decent amount of planning variable drives (accelerations) aren't really needed. With this in mind, you may need to have one main thrust nozzle, if this is to provide a greater rate of acceleration relative to accelerations provided to craft orienting (rotation) nozzles, or you may even consider a main thrust, if adequate having fired all four position orienting nozzles at once. Finally you'd, need on a perpendicular plane relative to the existing four nozzles, two more orienting the local 'yaw' axis with two nozzles controlling local y rotations (Euler). These would be situated on two parallel edges neither of which were adjacent to any edge shared by any other nozzle.
Manual control designs with respect to craft orientation. Some of the simplest and easiest design use, I've seen in simulator cases, keep the rotation programmed so that rotation velocities are fixed. Meaning that a fixed burn say in seconds or micro seconds is applied enough to provide a constant turn rotation. Ideally this would be something like a fixed micro burst thrust, so that once rotation were achieved response times to achieving a stop rotation burn were a matter of applying the same micro burst thrust in the opposing direction with minimal latency response between human controller and your craft's rotation. You'd probably program these burns, so that from the human vantage, working with say a stick if you oriented the stick in a rotation direction. It would apply a micro burst thrust in such direction, and then once the stick's orientation were released back to a normal position (no rotations position), then opposing thrust were applied to re equalise such vessel so that no rotation should exist. Thus, not leaving the human flight director with having to time burns for rotation turns, and instead making this steady, easy, and well controlled.
While the build smaller, less mass, more missions approach has been utilised by NASA, I imagined with some success, one has to wonder where NASA is exactly floundering on this approach? The reason why I ask this question: isn't because of the apparent lack of a readily available American low gravitational assist vehicle for ISS missions where apparently the decommissioned space shuttle had been rightly served a deserved retirement. After all, given the the huge payload that apparently needed to be, instead of dropped via module via parachute back into Earth and neither needing the something aerodynamics of a glider to touchdown at some airport base, hadn't need be so selective in the other role in so far as having a few, as opposed to potentially many more, and secondly it were a major fuel guzzler in terms of getting a low gravity orbit assist. Sadly it brings me to this other question, why are so many rockets designed on the premise of ground launches in terms of rocket propellant use? It seems if you could reduce your payloads and mass significantly enough, you could use a weather balloon to get your craft up to certain heights, and then launch having expended that much less propellant in the process, and maybe having used how much un combusted gas in the process? Is there practical reasons why, or is it merely the sort of eye candy of the rocket itself the more so prevails in social political culture demanding technological conformal standards?!
Sadly I remember having some discussion on the subject of Space shuttle technology, and the argument whether true or not were that then, because of Shuttle hardware designs, something of a desktop computer owned way back when were more powerful then actual Shuttle's on board computing systems. I weren't sure if this were true or not, but in a way it seemed somewhat plausible.
In any event considering so many rows and columns of manual consoles, having served some purpose, and maybe purposefully existing on any manned craft, any unmanned craft would dispense of just that much less volume, material and mass, doing what software could just as likely do successfully, and then considering now that technology has further miniaturised processing successfully, so that smartphone devices, rival computational processing of a desktop some several years back(?), it seems, finding cheap, low mass, high powered computational processing hardware, and memory shouldn't be a problem for a small scale space probe or craft. Then it were a matter, of getting craft stabilisations programs and equipment (the simple gyroscope would aid here, for example) installed, so that your craft weren't expending its propellant in the wrong directions sending it hopelessly tumbling all about, owing to one of Newton's laws here, where all manner of resistance in less rarefied atmospheres hadn't exist, and then making sure your could do something as simple as send and receive signals to and from such craft. Honestly not too savvy on broadcast signal types, but I imagine you could do this in a whole host of ways provided your signal transmitter were strong enough say to send a signal through the vast depths of space, and you'd probably want to make sure that your craft, had a software routine, to automatically position and orient its antenna, in case, signalling should cease, have self reboot. I'd imagine a lot more design effort could be spent in terms of software design relative hardware, it seems if you could keep this otherwise streamlined and low mass, you could pour tons of massless code into craft without the same payload expense once having existed.
You as the controller would probably need both tracking software and hardware for your probe, this would mean, in like kind an broadcasting antenna and transmitter. You'd need to be able to do this in a manner of transmitting something like digital radio I imagine, or using some sort of broadcast signal type where signal deterioration weren't a problem over greater distance relative the terrestrial bound case, not sure if this would rule out, for instance, digital visible optic transmissions here even. Ideally you might choose some signal type that required low broadcast power with low signal degradation over time and space. While you wouldn't be as limited on ground with the signal transmitter type and transmission power, the power spent in accelerating your vessel, I imagined would increase more so, the larger the transmitter type required for it. Space and mass are more so at premiums here for your craft, relative say the ample space provided in a room of a house. You'd need to have the receiving hardware with transfers both on the probe and at your base of command, signals so that they are read in some usable form (like binary) at a base, and at some point interfaced, I'd imagine to higher level language software most likely implemented.
A little more detailed at least in thoughts of tracking. Consider the problem of your craft's navigation systems. How does it know exactly where it is at relative to Earth, and how do you know where it is at when it flying through the recesses of space? Unfortunately GPS weren't going to bail you out here, so you'd need to be able to work inside and outside applicable coordinate systems, ensuring that your positions were, but what if it loses it signal, and doesn't know where home is exactly at, or something imperceptible has cropped up so that your craft is orienting its receiving dish in the wrong location. You might have a routine where home base, sends out a feeder signal, but consider the Earth rotating and you'd have to wait till the next day with your automated systems sending on a broadcast antenna a feeder a signal to reorient it when the craft were spending energy scanning in a range of oriented directions, its communication source. Hmm, then you think it would have been nice if some space engineers designed something of interplanetary navigations array, something like a beacon to help lost probes find their way back to their home planet, but probably nothing of this kind exists at present...although maybe someday something like a space bearing Positioning system will exist, but for now, likely you wouldn't be able to find the next satellite open for communicating signals to and from that you could co op for a short time transmission time, so you were left on the ground more likely sending signals to your lost probe, but even then you'd have to have scan search routines which attempted to find it. And only you might have wished having had some wider receiving dish on board your craft then had presently existed, or you might have changed to a different transmission type, which sent a broader albeit possibly weaker signal which hadn't broadcast so focally in limited field range?! In any event, for the lost probe, it seems you'd want some sort of routine which allows through broadcast and transmission, narrowing in on a position range of a probe, and the probe being able to transmit in variable ranges, so that the both you and your probe could communicate, and then maybe once some basic communications were established, you could increase focus and signal strength therein, until having reached some reception/transmission optimum?
Then power consumption. It seems the standard lithium ion battery, could last how long doing what you demanded of it, on board your probe? But these do have mass, and an array of these increase payload. Alternate solutions, maybe solar?! Maybe something else? Doubtfully, you'd have access to radioactive matter, that could potentially provide both internal heating to your equipment and serve as a power source, but at least with some ingenuity, you might think of power savings methods in terms of processing usage while in flight, and if you at least had some solar panels, you could recharge your batteries for that long flight to Mars.
And lastly fuel, maybe the probe would have an ion drives which could feed the craft subtle acceleration over longer periods of time unlike traditional propellant based drives, or you'd be dealing in traditional propellant. In the traditional case, you'd have focused burns, likely in conjunction with gravitational assists, say rounding a moon, or sun and burning as you rounding these celestial bodies so as to increase your crafts velocity and change its trajectory, so that it fly outside the once orbital period around such body of origin and in the direction of intended destination. Likely though unless anything cropped up putting your vessel out of its necessary position, once corrections were made in staging, and necessary fuel to make the journey were a go, you'd have your craft programmed automatically for the burns. Typically craft might have at least several propulsion based nozzles. Where four nozzles would control local z rotations (Euler), and a local x rotation (Euler). If one side of your craft were shown in two dimensions in say a rectangular configuration, the simplest nozzle configuration to achieve this would be a cross configuration such that one nozzle were configured near the intercept of each edge of the rectangle. You'd want to learn how to rotate your craft so as to, for instance, bleed off speed with a retrograde burn on approach to your intended destination. My understanding are that propellant based drives, often in the past, hadn't had variable drive options here. In other words, accelerations on burns aren't fixed. Meaning if you go and break, you do so at the same rate of change. Generally though with ample space, and a decent amount of planning variable drives (accelerations) aren't really needed. With this in mind, you may need to have one main thrust nozzle, if this is to provide a greater rate of acceleration relative to accelerations provided to craft orienting (rotation) nozzles, or you may even consider a main thrust, if adequate having fired all four position orienting nozzles at once. Finally you'd, need on a perpendicular plane relative to the existing four nozzles, two more orienting the local 'yaw' axis with two nozzles controlling local y rotations (Euler). These would be situated on two parallel edges neither of which were adjacent to any edge shared by any other nozzle.
Manual control designs with respect to craft orientation. Some of the simplest and easiest design use, I've seen in simulator cases, keep the rotation programmed so that rotation velocities are fixed. Meaning that a fixed burn say in seconds or micro seconds is applied enough to provide a constant turn rotation. Ideally this would be something like a fixed micro burst thrust, so that once rotation were achieved response times to achieving a stop rotation burn were a matter of applying the same micro burst thrust in the opposing direction with minimal latency response between human controller and your craft's rotation. You'd probably program these burns, so that from the human vantage, working with say a stick if you oriented the stick in a rotation direction. It would apply a micro burst thrust in such direction, and then once the stick's orientation were released back to a normal position (no rotations position), then opposing thrust were applied to re equalise such vessel so that no rotation should exist. Thus, not leaving the human flight director with having to time burns for rotation turns, and instead making this steady, easy, and well controlled.
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