Here comes the twelfth Fan Friday. You ask and we reply. If you want to take a look at the previous questions go to our blog.
For this week we are proud to present you a all-tech edition.
Tech "Is the transmission of HD video even possible? I mean don't you need like much more energy than you got?"
We actually covered this topic in one of our last FF issues, at least partly. (Look at FF #8 for the last two questions.) Back then we showed what minimum bandwidth you need to get HD video back to earth.
The energy budget is one of the hottest discussed topics when it comes to planetary exploration missions. Everything is depending on it and you don't know how much reserve each subsystem could need in case something goes wrong. The good news is, even though the cameras need energy their subsystem is not the most power hungry one. Its power requirements can even be determined more or less quite easily here on Earth in a test environment. Also, if the power budget get's critical, disabling certain cameras, level of details or features can cut the toll on the energy requirements tremendously. This is something that can't easily be done for the drive subsystem for example. There are a lot of other subsystems that tend to have certain peaks that are hard to estimate and could ruin your day.
Tech "What is the most complex part of the mission?"
The "soft" landing! Hands down. During the decent phase the lander and ground control has to react upon sensatory input in the blink of an eye. One error and the lander will drill itself into the lunar surface pretty deep. You read can a bit more on this on our Website at PTScientists.com.
Tech “Ok, so why not just send like 4 landers all at once so at least one will make it?”
In fact this would be possible in a cubesat standardized way. But our current mission profile is especially designed to be a primary payload, what means we can't share the same rocket with another active propulsion system like our lander. This may change in future designs but for now we stick to, KISS - Keep It Simple and Smart!
Tech "Does the electronics need to be protected from the vacuum?"
The vacuum is not that much of a problem, of course there such as outgassing of components but that can be taken care of by design. Though the toughest problem you encounter especially in space is radiation. The radiation levels on the lunar surface go past 500 times the ambient radiation on Earth. This leads to a lot of expected and unexpected effects inside every piece of electronic. To circumvent this we need to utilize radiation-hardened parts as best as possible and build electronic designs that got integrated fail safes and can survive severe radiation damage. One side challenge is that, though there are multiple satellite components available, being used for example on the ISS or commercial satellites, there level of hardening often still isn't enough as there still protected from most of the radiation by earth magnetic field.
Tech "How do you cool the electronics? There's no air?"
We have covered part of that topic already in previous blogpost. It tells you a bit about external heat management, where the heat comes from and how to get rid of it. For the internal heat management one can use passive elements like heat pipes or active elements like stirling engine.
That's it for FanFriday this week. If you have a question for us and want them answered from a genuine Part-Time Scientists send us your questions to q@ptscientists.com
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