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[GK86]

Link.

If you look up Uranus and Neptune in an encyclopedia, there's a good chance the pictures you see will be about 30 years old.

In the late 1970s, the twin Voyager spacecraft launched on a grand tour of the solar system, taking advantage of a rare planetary alignment that only happens every 175 years. Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in January 1986, and Neptune in August 1989. The probe was traveling too fast, and lacked the fuel, to slow down and enter orbit.

We haven't been back since.

Every 10 years, NASA releases a report called the decadal survey outlining top priorities for planetary exploration. The current iteration, covering 2013 through 2022, identifies three top missions: Mars sample return, the Europa Clipper, and a return to Uranus or Neptune (Uranus was favored due to more convenient planetary alignments, which affects travel times).

With the next decadal survey just five years away, scientists are revisiting the plan to send a spacecraft to our outermost planets, known as the ice giants. A new NASA report, officially a "pre-decadal" mission study, describes the reasons to go and the spacecraft that could take us there. The report will feed into the next decadal survey, which will lay out NASA's upcoming planetary science priorities.

Why go back?

The most pressing question to be solved by a mission to either of the ice giants is figuring out what lies beneath the planets' outer layers of clouds. This is similar to the question NASA's Juno spacecraft is trying to answer at Jupiter.

Figuring out these planets' basic compositions and interior structures would fill an important gap in our knowledge of how solar systems form. Among the exoplanets we've discovered, worlds weighing the same as Uranus and Neptune appear more common than gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. Yet ice giants seem to require a very specific set of conditions to form during the birth of a solar system.

"Based on the current models, it looks like there's only a really narrow time window when you can get these sort of planets to form," said Amy Simon, a senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "You need to have a big enough core, but on the other hand, you need to have the solar nebula dissipating so that you can get these gas and ices in there at the same time."

The travel time to Uranus, using an Atlas V with five solid rocket boosters, is 12 years for an orbiter. It takes 13 years to get to Neptune using a Delta IV Heavy launcher—and that's with an extra solar-electric propulsion stage to add additional thrust. All missions require Jupiter gravity assists, as well as likely flybys of Venus and Earth.

Good launch windows are available for Uranus between 2030 and 2034, while Neptune trajectories are favorable around 2029. That means we might not get to see the ice giants again until the late 30s or early 40s.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

If you look up Uranus...

hehehehehehe

 

[T.v]

The timetables involved in these missions will never cease to amaze me.

 

[nasax]

Those years mentioned look fake and like some faraway future yet they're really close.

It's closer to the year 2030 than the year 2000. So crazy.

 

[sphinx]

Good launch windows are available for Uranus between 2030 and 2034, while Neptune trajectories are favorable around 2029. That means we might not get to see the ice giants again until the late 30s or early 40s.

most depressive thread today.

 

[GK86]

most depressive thread today.

My reaction when I read that part of the article. Well, gives us something to look forward to.

 

[thehypocrite]

China will get there first.

 

[Pieman0920]

Good launch windows are available for Uranus between 2030 and 2034

Well at least they're giving me plenty of time to prepare.

 

[Mivey]

Are they planning on doing some probing there?

 

[Antiwhippy]

My missions to uranus have generally not ended well.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

 

[Ketch]

You're sooooooooo fat that NASA studies Uranus.

 

[Regginator]

I did NOT sign up for that shit, NASA. Get the hell away from me or I'm pressing charges.

 

[PnCIa]

Fuck those outer planets. Spend all your money looking at them ice-moons searching for extraterrestrial bacteria

 

[Militaratus]

NASA Motivational Poster in 2030:
"Probing Uranus!"

 

[FyreWulff]

Uranus is so weird. It spins on it's side and it has an equator hotter than the poles even though the poles face the sun all the time

 

[jts]

Uranus is so weird. It spins on it's side and it has an equator hotter than the poles even though the poles face the sun all the time

 

[TheCochese]

Since it's the second time, I'll assume we are allowed to go deeper.

 

[KingBroly]

I'd rather we get back to the Moon first, you know? Make that a common-ish trip before we start thinking Mars and Neptune and Uranus and etc.

 

[TheCochese]

I'd rather we get back to the Moon first, you know? Make that a common-ish trip before we start thinking Mars and Neptune and Uranus and etc.

You're allowed to go Uranus to Moon if you're in love.

 

[GK86]

I'd rather we get back to the Moon first, you know? Make that a common-ish trip before we start thinking Mars and Neptune and Uranus and etc.

It has been close to 30 years since NASA has gone back to Neptune/Uranus. There is a lot to learn from those two. The Moon, let China take care of it.

 

[Xe4]

*Cue 5th grader Uranus joke here.*
Good. It's absolutely crazy we've never sent a mission to Uranus or Neptune, though given their extremely long trajectories I can understand why. Still, I do think it should be the next priority as far as orbiters are concerned. There's so much to learn about these planets.

It helps that they'll be able to orbit around them for much longer before having to crash them into the planets as their radiation belts are much weaker than Jupiter or Saturn's.

I'd rather we get back to the Moon first, you know? Make that a common-ish trip before we start thinking Mars and Neptune and Uranus and etc.

Why not both? Manned missions to the Moon, an asteroid, or Mars need not interfere with deep space unmanned missions to whatever. As always, it's only a question of funding.

 

[orientalNoodle]

Uranus has some really fast wind which is composed of methane gas.

 

[Beartruck]

The head of the Uranus mission is Astronaut Joe Bootie. He will dive into Uranus' deepest crevices. Butts. Farts. Ass. Ok im done.

 

[Earthbound64]

Myanus is off-limits.

 

[Earthbound64]

I'd rather we get back to the Moon first, you know? Make that a common-ish trip before we start thinking Mars and Neptune and Uranus and etc.

Is the funding there for that?
No?
So you don't want us to go to other planets for a century?

 

[jett]

Good launch windows are available for Uranus between 2030 and 2034, while Neptune trajectories are favorable around 2029. That means we might not get to see the ice giants again until the late 30s or early 40s.

Depressing. It'd be nice if somebody did something about gravity during my lifetime.