starship-design: Pathfinder/Explorer Survey Requirements

I would like to open by suggesting you read all or most of the following links:

"Twin Probes to Map Earth's Gravity"

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/03/17/russia.space/index.html

"A World of Ice Beneath the Rust"
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-odyssey-02e.html

"Mars Global Surveyor Begins Second Year of Extended Mission"
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/1yearExtend/index.html

These are just a few recent examples of the satellite hardware that is required to gather basic information on a planet's structure. They each cost millions of dollars, it takes between 6 and twenty-four just to explore one planet thoroughly, and we must include sufficient of each type with the exploratory vehicle to survey the expected number of planets in the new system.

We must also be able to deploy systemic survey craft on the way into the system. These craft must be capable of detailed surveys of the star's magnetosphere, solar wind, gravity field, planetary orbits, asteroids, comets, Oort cloud object, etc.

In other words, irregardless of the mass required for the humans on the survey vessel, there must be allowance made for a significant payload of remote probes.

I recently posted a link to a story about an "on orbit" assembly program that was focusing upon delivering smaller, more robust modules to orbit for assembly there, thereby increasing the functionality and reducing the cost of fielding a modern high capability satellite. This is probably one of the saner things I have heard about and it has obvious direct applicability to extrasolar survey missions.

For those of you who are/were familiar with Kelly's original numbers for the Explorer class and my limited proposal for the Pathfinder class, perhaps it is time to revisit them and refine them a little.

Lee