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Mars_B4_Moon

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Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Watercraft also capable of independent operation underwater

It would be a mini submarine, if Mars possibly has a sub glacial lake then maybe a 'sub' design could be used at Mars.

At Titan there is a mission concept that was proposed by Steven Oleson, Ralph Lorenz, and Micheal Paul,
https://www.space.com/saturn-moon-titan … ssion.html

the sub could be ready to launch in the 2030s, researchers said.

There are proposals for Europa 'A Submarine for Europa'
https://www.universetoday.com/11693/a-s … or-europa/
The space-Submarine would be an artificial intelligence Drone.

Many planetary scientists believe that Jupiter’s moon Europa is our solar system’s best contender to share Earth’s distinction of harboring life. Evidence gathered by the Voyager and Galileo spacecrafts suggests Europa contains a deep, possibly warm ocean of salty water under an outer shell of fissured ice.

NASA, the ESA and China are looking at outer world exploration, Juno is currently in orbit around Jupiter, Saturn and Titan recently explored, NASA and the ESA will have 2 new missions at Jupiter.  Both Europa and Titan are more like Planets, very active worlds with a lack of impact craters that are expected on Moons of the Solar System.

A scout mission would probably be launched before landing a Submarine. We have little information about these subsurface worlds, the Oceans and Lakes of Europa and Titan other than they 'exist', however there is some data on Titan which created better more accurate models but you can not be sure until you land. The liquid areas of Titan are better mapped, on Europa there could be miles of ice to dig or melt through first. Titan offers aero breaking and a parachute to land a larger payload, Europa will probably offer no advantage unless some kind of pool magically opens up and you get a magical opportunity for Lithobraking a "crash landing" too risky for such a complex mission. On Titan they now estimate an average polar lake is ethane, with a percent of methane, 7 percent propane and smaller amounts of hydrogen cyanide, butane, nitrogen and argon and Benzene is expected to fall like snow and quickly dissolve into the lakes
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg … scape.html
the Titan Lakes might have weird crystals
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg … tml?page=3
Ligeia Mare is one of the better mapped Lakes on Titan, filled with a mix of methane, ethane, and nitrogen and radar signals were able to detect the sea floor reflection 170 m 560 ft below the liquid surface. Images of possible Lake, Sea and River feature were seen on Titan taken during Huygens' probe descent, features that resemble am Earth-like shoreline and features similar to Earth drainage channels.

Payload sizes? SLS and Space-X offer Heavy Lift. There might even be a double launch of two rockets, the giant Payload and maybe a Nuclear Propulsion Space-Tug which can rendezvous in Earth Orbit before the journey to Europa or Titan.

Juno currently at Jupiter had a Launch mass 3,625 kg or 7,992 lb
Cassini Huygens operated for 19 years arrived in 2004 and spent 13+ years at Saturn was 5712 kilograms or 5.6 imperial ton or in metric tonnes 5.7 it is possible that a Nuclear mission would fly as Solar will not work beyond Jupiter and Titan is too cold.
The Apollo lander Launch mass 3,625 kg 7,992 lb the Saturn-V could launch a TLI Mass 116,314 lb (52,759 kg)

The Space-Submarine could have camera features similar to an unmanned vessel that films underwater creatures in a nature documentary on Earth or it could have features that are similar to a military submarine, propellers, stabilizer fins, the power section or Nuclear Reactor, it might drop a long cable, it could have sonar features and communications antenna, some type of hatch might be on the outer hull where a robot arm would deploy and take samples, on Titan a sub might make use of a periscope. The Rudders and Fins help the Sub Navigate, the Periscope Sail section might take a sample by arm and drop it off to a surface lander, Space Sub would have bow planes at the front of the submarine and the stern planes at the rear and it would move with buoyancy like a Balloon and stern planes function in much the same way as an aircraft's elevator, the Space-Sub would take more liquid in or put more 'air' inside to change buoyancy of the Space-boat.  Anything on the surface of Europa needs to be radiation shielded, Jupiter's moon Europa is subjected to high radiation level, the Moon Europa receives 5.4 Sv (540 rem) of radiation per day, 1,800 times the average annual dose experienced by a human, on Titan everything will be needed to be shielded against the cold. We do not know if these offworld Lakes and Oceans have thin and more heavy ice parts, a Submarine might have to deal with difficult underwater currents, it might need to rise and break though ice for whatever reason and transmit. Europa made of water is possibly comparable to conditions on planet Earth, Titan has what is believed to be ethane/methane lakes. Inside the ship could be a guitar like string that gives an indication of pressure your vessel is under. You might have to drill or melt 100 km down if you land at the wrong spot on Europa, it could require a lot of new innovative melting or drilling to get a sub under Europa's surface, on Earth there was a Soveit era feat 'Kola Superdeep Borehole' was just 9 inches in diameter, but at 40,230 feet (12,262 meters) or 7.6 miles reigns as the deepest hole.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kol … 34be11d5e3
The thickness of Europa's ice crust is so far unexplored at times it estimated to be between it could be as little as 1 km in places 0.6 miles or it can be 3 km and 30 km thick, some study estimate Europa’s ice shell 10 to 15 miles or 15 to 25 kilometers.

You can probably Fly something on Titan, the Sub might be a mix of Aricraft or Rocketship dropping a Sub payload, temperature is an extreme low of −179 degrees Celsius  -292 degrees Fahrenheit and pressure 1.5 times that at Earth's surface. Europa has internal heat, its salt waters can remain stable at standard pressure up to about minus 50 C the ice is as hard as granite but the surface is has a lot of radiation and a temperature about 110 K or −160 °C; −260 °F
If the Europa subsurface water ocean is warm it explains the strange geologic features and melt events observed on its surface
The temperature of Europa's subsurface water ocean
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 3503004251
'A 100 km deep liquid water ocean probably underlies the icy exterior of Jupiter's satellite Europa.'

This mission would help us better understand Exoplanets  the exotic worlds of exo-oceanography, Ganymede, and Callisto; and Saturn's moons Enceladus are also thought to have Planetary oceanography,  Europa is estimated to have over twice the water volume of Earth's and currently Titan is the only other confirmed world with large stable bodies of extraterrestrial surface liquids, rivers or Sea or Ocean and there are regional mapped lakes of Titan, Europa's water is there but its a frozen waterworld so we need to break or melt through its outer shell first. NASA also reported that it is statistically likely that Waterworld exoplanets are more common than Earth, worlds with oceans more common in the Milky Way galaxy, based on mathematical models and exoplanet study. Titania moon of Uranus and Triton moon of Neptune are also expected to have 'Lakes', some Kuiper Blet Objects or Trans Neptune objects such as 'Gonggong' or 'Orcus' and its moon Vanth could have internal heat with a water–ammonia mixture.

Cancelled JIMO  Nuclear with ion propulsion system or High Power Electric Propulsion or NEXIS engine and perhaps would have been powered by a small fission reactor
https://www.space.com/771-nasa-2006-bud … uffer.html
JUICE - JUpiter ICy moons Explorer - is the first large-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program.
https://sci.esa.int/web/juice
'Europa Clipper' an interplanetary mission in development by NASA
https://web.archive.org/web/20210805032 … ain-price/
New Collection of Papers on Sub-Ice Sampling
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/new- … -sampling/

Unfortunately mankind is still killing each other so there will be military developments in tech. This sub looks small from South Korean company Hanwha.

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news … operations

It will be capable of attaining a maximum speed of 7 kt and dive to a depth of 300 m.

There have also been a number of mysterious drone events at sea reported since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

News reports say NASA has recently worked in partnership with Ocean explorers

'NASA partners with deep-ocean explorers to develop tech for Europa mission'
https://www.space.com/orpheus-ocean-aut … technology

A new deep-sea exploration technology that could one day search for life in subsurface oceans on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn will be put to test during a two-week demonstration expedition aboard a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship.

The new underwater vehicle, called Orpheus, relies on autonomous navigation software developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California for the Mars Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter. The primary task for the mini-submarine, which was built by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, will be to advance humanity's understanding of the deepest regions of the oceans, the so-called hadal zone.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-12-25 15:54:03)

tahanson43206

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Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,417

Re: Watercraft also capable of independent operation underwater

For Mars_B4_Moon re new topic...

Best wishes for success with swimming probes ... There would seem to be a lot of potential for this concept in the Solar System.

If some of Void's visions come to pass, there might even be an opportunity on Mars.

To ** really ** stretch the concept ... in planets with thick gaseous atmosphere, a probe might be thought of as "swimming" rather than "flying"

I'm thinking of Neptune, Jupiter and Saturn but there may be other candidates.

A submarine probe might be a better fit in those sites, than a traditional balloon, doe to the pressure.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Re: Watercraft also capable of independent operation underwater

For Mars_B4_Moon re new topic...

If some of Void's visions come to pass, there might even be an opportunity on Mars.

To ** really ** stretch the concept ... in planets with thick gaseous atmosphere, a probe might be thought of as "swimming" rather than "flying"

(th)

They have also considered swarms or a swarm of swimming robots

https://newatlas.com/space/nasa-concept … ropa-life/
,
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-swarm-rob … uropa.html