Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

RedStreak · 2006-09-27 21:16:46

Always the last item on any Martian scientist's mind when looking to analyze, study, and extrapolate from regarding Mars' formation and history are the neglected moons envoking the ancient names of 'fear' and 'dread'...

Mars is obviously the main target, no way around it, but the Martian moons are within virtually arm's reach of the planet, even more easily accessible than our moon to us. However these satellites have simply been dubbed 'asteroids' and have been shoved aside to focus the magnifying glass on Mars alone. I don't think they should be dismissed entirely, at least not until we're sure they couldn't be of use.

First off, these satellites are not typical asteroids. Looking at the outer planets and their huge collections of moons, the satellites almost certainly pegged as ex-asteroids or KBOs have huge, elliptical, and very wild orbits. Mars' are extremely tame by comparison. Phobos, in particular, has extremely unusual features - rilles namely they look like the moon was errupting like a geyser. Winding the clock backward, the orbits of the twin moons actually converge, suggesting they came from a single body split in two. Taken together this suggests these moons had, while perhaps not spectacular, but unqiue history - and given their proximity to Mars they offer clues to the parent planet's enviorment during its formation, and with their carbon and supposed water compositions implications on Martian life's developement.

The current VSE architecture and Mars Direct never gave Deimos & Phobos an afterthought. I believe, however, exploration of the duo is within the VSE capacility without compromising Martian studies or Martian ISP.

A dedicated lander for the moons aren't needed - a CEV alone could do job. A small package consisting of a penetrometer and a tether would be attached and then fired at the moon. Astronauts shimmy up and down the tether - distance wouldn't be a factor as a simple motor would essential reel the orbiter closer to the moon without physically contacting - 10 meters at most ought to be adequete.

Whether or not Americans visit these satellites there definetely has been interest from the Russians. The ill-fated Phobos obviously but now there's talk of the Phobos-Grunt mission and the Chinese participating in the same mission. Future implications of such a cooperative interest will be noted...

Any opinions on the value of the Martian moons?

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-09-28 13:05:47

Phobos and Deimos, might make good radiation shelters for long term orbital space stations around Mars. You just dig a tunnel and bury a crew module and you have something that can stop cosmic rays and protect against the worst solar flares. If it is a solid rock, you could perhaps spin it up and turn it into a free space colony with the pull of Earth gravity at the equator. Or perhaps an Island Three could be made out of it.

Suppose we could trade Mars' moons for Earth's, what if Phobos and Deimos orbited Earth and Earth's Moon orbited Mars, what would that mean?

RedStreak · 2006-10-01 14:24:12

Suppose we could trade Mars' moons for Earth's, what if Phobos and Deimos orbited Earth and Earth's Moon orbited Mars, what would that mean?

Mars would have a more stable axis/climate while the Earth's would go out of whack fast. With Phobos & Deimos' orbits we'd gain moons more accessible to reach and close to our geosynchronus orbit (assuming their orbital periods remain same). Interesting hypothetical senerio but I want to weight real applications of the Martian moons...

A big bonus the Martian moons have over ours is extremely low ascent/descent budget required. You could probably perform all of the orbital and landing maneuvers to either satellite with small thrusters or even ion engines.

Again I ask are the Martian moons worth looking into while we're at Mars?

Commodore · 2006-10-01 18:46:39

Phobos and Deimos are both covered in about a meter of loose dust, which I would imagine would make any surface operations very difficult. Its been theorized that blasting the regolith on the moon with high energy microwaves could create a smooth solid surface. If the same were done on the Martian moons, it would give us a solid surface to land on, and eliminate that particular difficulty. Whether or not that would destroy anything scientifically usefull is anyones guess at this point.

Once that is accomplished its fantastic place to put just about anything.

RedStreak · 2006-10-02 14:32:03

Phobos and Deimos are both covered in about a meter of loose dust, which I would imagine would make any surface operations very difficult.

Difficult...or easy to harvest.

If that same fluffy dust proves to be carbon or water-bearing material that means shovels may not even be required to scoop it up.

RedStreak · 2007-07-15 09:07:49

NASA ponders human mission to Phobos and Deimos.

http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/leonarddavid

Russia is noted for spearheading with Phobos-Grunt. I can't help but notice a constant bias for Phobos; sure its the larger moon with some unique features but Deimos seems favorable to me due to its near-syncronus orbit and its higher orbit - favorable for incoming spacecraft.

Regardless of which moon its good NASA is at least peaking at the possibility.

noosfractal · 2007-07-15 10:07:50

NASA ponders human mission to Phobos and Deimos.

That is interesting!

I think Phobos gets more attention because of its similarity to C-type asteroids. We have a lot to learn about this class of asteroids and they could be very useful as a source of raw materials.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2007-10-07 02:54:13

A big bonus the Martian moons have over ours is extremely low ascent/descent budget required. You could probably perform all of the orbital and landing maneuvers to either satellite with small thrusters or even ion engines.

Strange how these Moons were never mentioned in the VSE

RedStreak · 2007-11-28 01:49:59

CRISM Views Phobos and Deimos

It will be interesting to learn what MRO's sensitive intrument can tell us about the properties of the Martian moons. Given CRISM detected plenty of water-bearing minerals on Mars already it has a fair chance to do the same for the moons.

These CRISM measurements are the first spectral measurements to resolve the disk of Deimos, and the first of this part of Phobos to cover the full wavelength range needed to assess the presence of iron-, water-, and carbon-containing minerals.

cIclops · 2007-11-28 02:08:57

MEX got much closer to Phobos a while ago and has also been doing spectroscopic analysis. Indications are that it is a carbonaceous chondrite asteroid.

RedStreak · 2007-11-28 03:47:06

MEX got much closer to Phobos a while ago and has also been doing spectroscopic analysis. Indications are that it is a carbonaceous chondrite asteroid.

I'm curious to know if any of these spectroscopic readings suggest if the Martian moons have exploitable resources.

cIclops · 2007-11-28 04:07:07

Water would be very very useful, even a few thousands tons would do

And of course Phobos-Grunt should be bringing back a sample in 2010.

neviden · 2007-11-30 04:20:25

If Phobos or Deimos would circle around the Earth they would have been turned into a space station long time ago. It's just too good to ignore it. If they have any water in them they would make a nice fuelling station or at least source of cheap, loose, easily accessible shielding material already in orbit around planet.

The only reason why is it not given any attention in VSE is that it apparently doesn’t make good photo opportunity to land on “some floating rock somewhere”.

cIclops · 2007-11-30 05:38:54

Moons have different uses to Space Stations and quite different environments. Attitude control and reboost are unnecessary however surface attachment is needed and dust and long eclipses are a problem. Even a small moon will provide a more stable micro gravity environment and platform for experiments than a station. The big advantage would be ISRU.

To be fair to the VSE it does refer to human exploration of "other destinations" as well as Mars. The Constellation architecture will support voyages to NEOs, the next best things!

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-11-30 09:14:30

Perhaps the first expedition to Mars should be to Phobos. Use the VSE architecture to set up a mining and refueling base on Phobos. This may require a manned presence. Then we can refuel the incoming ships so they can return to Earth without having to bring their return fuel along.

neviden · 2007-11-30 09:18:10

I agree. NEOs should be the real focus of exploration all along. NEO exploitation would actually enable economical space and human flight. Value of water in LEO is more then the value of gold on Earth just because it is so hard to bring it from a deep gravitational well. We need water, propellant, structural materials and everything else in orbit, and we need it cheaply.

Mars and Moon will only be “flags and footprints” until the price of space flight falls drastically. Sure, they might be very interesting destinations, but any space travel needs lots of propellant and materials which are no good to us down on Earth. NEOs are conveniently already strewn all over the solar system with smaller delta-v then from the Moon and already in 0 g environment, so they can be slowly moved by high isp, low thrust engines closer to Earth.

Phobos and Deimos have already moved closer to Mars by themselves..

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-11-30 10:08:08

Well if we are going to Mars anyway, Phonos could be the first instance of asteroid resource utilization, if it makes subsequent Mars missions cheaper, we could afford more of them. Using the technology NASA developed commercial asteroid utilization may not be far behind.

cIclops · 2007-11-30 10:40:08

Tom, it would better to learn how to use NEOs, they are much closer and some will almost surely have water. Once fuel production is achieved it will transform space access and enormously help Mars expeditions. Phobos and Deimos will be interesting to explore and they may have use as orbital stations, but compared with Mars, they're a sideshow.

neviden, indeed NEO's will hopefully be useful ISRU sites but they also will make superb stepping stones on the way to Mars. Similarly the asteroid belt will provide resources to go even further out. Moon and Mars both have special qualities. The Moon because of its physical closeness (a few days travel), ISRU (even without H2O), scientific value (solar system history) and as an observational platform (farside radio) and a learning environment for surface exploration. And Mars, because it's a whole planet to be explored and eventually settled. It has enormous ISRU resources with over a million cubic kilometers of H2O in just the south polar cap. Mars has the resources to explore the outer planets and beyond!

samy · 2007-11-30 12:11:06

Are there any programs currently either operating or being developed whose main emphasis is to study NEOs?

Knowing which ones have the valuable volatiles would be really important information to have. Do we have this information, or do we have a program for finding out this information?

cIclops · 2007-11-30 13:07:15

Yes. Congress directed NASA to find 90% of all NEOs more than 140m in diameter. Surveys have been looking to catalog all 1 km diameter ones for several years, and most of them have probably been found. There are many many more smaller ones, it will be a long expensive survey to find even 90% of the 140m ones, one estimate is 15 years! Finding them is the first step, finding out what they are made of is more difficult, it needs bigger telescopes and more time observing each NEO. There are new scopes that will help a lot in this, checkout LSST and the powerful Pan-Starrs projects.

Animations of known inner solar system NEOs - gives a good picture of how many were known in 2002, there are MANY more to be discovered!

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-11-30 22:55:47

Tom, it would better to learn how to use NEOs, they are much closer and some will almost surely have water. Once fuel production is achieved it will transform space access and enormously help Mars expeditions. Phobos and Deimos will be interesting to explore and they may have use as orbital stations, but compared with Mars, they're a sideshow.
neviden, indeed NEO's will hopefully be useful ISRU sites but they also will make superb stepping stones on the way to Mars. Similarly the asteroid belt will provide resources to go even further out. Moon and Mars both have special qualities. The Moon because of its physical closeness (a few days travel), ISRU (even without H2O), scientific value (solar system history) and as an observational platform (farside radio) and a learning environment for surface exploration. And Mars, because it's a whole planet to be explored and eventually settled. It has enormous ISRU resources with over a million cubic kilometers of H2O in just the south polar cap. Mars has the resources to explore the outer planets and beyond!

I keep on remembering those 6 Ares V launchers needed to drag all that fuel into Mars orbit for Mars Semi-Direct. Now if you are going to produce fuel on MArs to get back into Low Earth orbit and have something waiting for them in orbit to take them back, wouldn't you also want to produce fuel at Phobos to take the shio back to Earth. Ultimately you might want to have a reusable ship that fuels from Phobos so it can make the trip to Earth with fuel for getting back to Mars, that way you wouldn't have to worry about refueling in Low Earth orbit or always have to launch a new ship from the ground, piece them together in low Earth orbit for a new mission.

cIclops · 2007-12-01 04:29:51

An ISRU fuel plant on Phobos or Deimos would be enormously helpful. First the right resources have to be confirmed there (preferably H2O) and second ISRU needs to be tested. ISRU with solid materials like regolith or ice is a far more difficult materials handling problem compared with using atmospheric CO2 on Mars. Yes it will reduce the fuel needed for landing on Mars and return, but it won't help with lifting the mass to LEO. Rough estimate: it will save one or maybe two Ares V per mission, but it will take more than one Ares V to test and setup.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-12-01 10:13:12

They'd also have to make fuel and store in on Phobos for the next mission, not their own. For safety reasons they'd need to drag all their return fuel into low Mars orbit. MArs Direct is not really equipped for exploiting Phobos, so some varient of the Design reference mission should be used. I also think a regolith mining operation might require the full attention of 6 astronauts, at least until we can work out the bugs of the thing and get robots to do it. I'm not really that knowledgable about mining, I suspect no one really is knowledgable about mining asteroids. Mining on Earth is done by people, though, people who get caught in cave-ins, one would think if they could have completely automated the process they would have. So I suspect a mining base on Phobos would have to be peopled. Now all they have to do is process enough fuel to get back to Earth and perhaps return to Mars. Perhaps reaction mass for a nuclear rocket, the actually fuel is compact enough to be lifted from Earth without much problem. I suspect a nuclear rocket could be used a number of times and then discarded, the crew modules would be replaced with each mission in low Earth Orbit, and the reaction mass would be obtained from Phobos.

RedStreak · 2007-12-01 16:11:35

Mars orbit. MArs Direct is not really equipped for exploiting Phobos, so some varient of the Design reference mission should be used. I also think a regolith mining operation might require the full attention of 6 astronauts, at least until we can work out the bugs of the thing and get robots to do it.

To visit not-so-much; I mentioned earlier that all you really need is just a CEV and a tether - no dedicated lander nessicary although if they chose to develop one for NEOs the Martian moons would be applicable for it as well.

To exploit long-term...yes, some extra hardware likely needed. Thinking about it though, an initial outpost doesn't nessicarily have to be sitting or embedded in the moon - it could be tethered just like the CEV idea. That gives more ideas...how to EXPLOIT the moon despite the weightlessness:

A tethered station doesn't nessicarily have to remain in the same spot. Just hook up a new tether a little ways away, disconnect the old and reel the station to new spot. Assuming the Martian moons are meters-thick coated with fluffy dust...to exploit w/o the hastle of mounting equiptment to rock or losing it in the dust apply something like a vaccum cleaner - yes I know ridiculous in the vaccum of space but it could use say a small gas jet to funnel the dust for instance. Once enough of a spot on the moon is sucked up just pull the station along kinda like a balloon.

How does that sound? Argue about how to the suck-up the dust but a tether setup is fairly straight-forward. If the tether comes loose it's not like the station's going to fly away - it'd already be flying in rendevous with the moon.

Commodore · 2007-12-01 22:22:18

Your standard orion CM/SM is probably a little small for a NEO, and certainly doesn't have room for any amount of surface equipment. Especially considering such missions are expected to last up to 90 day.

A relatively simple inflatable hab, perhaps even an off the self Bigelow would provide all the extra space needed, along with an airlock and a mini-EDS. All of which would be short evolutionary step from either Lunar or LEO architecture, and a stepping stone to Mars. Its a good platform for post CEV lunar sorties consisting of a 6 man or more multinational crew.

In fact, If Mars is done right and we put the needed infrastructure in Mars orbit and on ground early on capable of supporting a growing population, we can dispense with large and complicated long duration transit craft and send one or several of these cheap little habs with 6-8 people on a sub 90 day trip either way when the launch window opens up. The short transit times keep the health risks of zero-g and solar flares to a minimum, and they can recover in Mars orbit, and they don't have bring everything with them, cause we did our homework on the surface. It's forgotten perk of the BSG method.;)

And yes, one of these is more than capable of Phobos-Deimos mission. Almost indefinitely if were bringing up fuel from the surface.

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#1 2006-09-27 21:16:46

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#2 2006-09-28 13:05:47

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#3 2006-10-01 14:24:12

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#4 2006-10-01 18:46:39

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#5 2006-10-02 14:32:03

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#6 2007-07-15 09:07:49

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#7 2007-07-15 10:07:50

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#8 2007-10-07 02:54:13

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#9 2007-11-28 01:49:59

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#10 2007-11-28 02:08:57

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#11 2007-11-28 03:47:06

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#12 2007-11-28 04:07:07

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#13 2007-11-30 04:20:25

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#14 2007-11-30 05:38:54

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#15 2007-11-30 09:14:30

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#16 2007-11-30 09:18:10

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#17 2007-11-30 10:08:08

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#18 2007-11-30 10:40:08

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#19 2007-11-30 12:11:06

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#20 2007-11-30 13:07:15

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#21 2007-11-30 22:55:47

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#22 2007-12-01 04:29:51

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

#23 2007-12-01 10:13:12

Re: Phobos & Deimos - Worthy targets for Martian exploration?

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