Update Antares 2.5 coming soon

[Napalm42]

Hey, that's where my birthday lands, the Antares 2.5 would indeed be a nice present :lol:

 

[EnDSchultz]

Definitely going to be getting this one. Though, one question. What scientific value would there be in a manned Venusian flyby as opposed to a probe? Or would this be one of those fictional Orbiter "because it's awesome" sort of missions? I'm happy with that too.

 

[fausto]

A manned Venus flyby was proposed as part of Apollo Application Program : [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby"]Manned Venus Flyby - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

It could be useful to test a 14 months long space trip, its effects on astronauts and problems related to long periods away from home planet..

and of course yes.. it's awesome!

 

[K_Jameson]

It could be useful to test a 14 months long space trip, its effects on astronauts and problems related to long periods away from home planet..

...with Mars in mind! :thumbup:

 

[werdna]

...with Mars in mind! :thumbup:

How about an Antares Martian lander? It can be like Apollo + Mars + the future! You would need an extra docking area somewhere between the HAB and Antares LR. This of course raises questions about the lander itself- where would we put it? We could have a larger HAB module with a slightly different interior- there would be two docks, one for Antares and one for the lander. This would be good, because then you could change the lander for different kinds of missions. You could even dock a large probe if you were just doing a Venus flyby, and you wanted to drop something into the Venusian atmosphere.

Maybe in version 3...

 

[Luke Skywalker]

Release date would hopefully be a tuesday.

 

[K_Jameson]

How about an Antares Martian lander? It can be like Apollo + Mars + the future! You would need an extra docking area somewhere between the HAB and Antares LR. This of course raises questions about the lander itself- where would we put it? We could have a larger HAB module with a slightly different interior- there would be two docks, one for Antares and one for the lander. This would be good, because then you could change the lander for different kinds of missions. You could even dock a large probe if you were just doing a Venus flyby, and you wanted to drop something into the Venusian atmosphere.

Maybe in version 3...

Your observations are interesting; a complete martian mission will be very complex, not just a "lander" but a complete infrastructure for exploration and habitation... for now, we have no plan for it. Next step, in version 3, will be (hopefully) the long-awaited lunar lander for a lunar polar exploration (tentatively named "Polaris"). We are only in the "conceptual sketch" phase for it.

 

[Grover]

if i may be as bold as to make a suggestion for your next version:

some kind of lander would be the logical next step, since much of the work actualy done by an orbinaut is done during the descent to the target body (be it lunar or Martian (or Venusian in the case of a probe))

it will be great to see what you guys could come up with, perhaps a universal lander, capable of landing on either the moon or mars? i have a couple of ideas for this, but im sure a good long think could yield interesting results and methods

its good to see this still in development, its looking like a fine piece of work!

 

[K_Jameson]

An universal lander is a cool idea, but a Mars lander and a Moon lander have very different requirements in terms of thrust, delta-V and other technical aspects.

A modular project can be a pratical solution... we will see it in future.

 

[wizardchris]

Release date would hopefully be a tuesday.

One tuesday left in February 2012! We all hope to fly Antares 2.5 soon.