TAU (spacecraft)

This article is about the spacecraft. For other uses, see Tau (Disambiguation).

TAU (Thousand Astronomical Units) was a proposal for a spacecraft without people on board.

More information

It was a proposed uncrewed interstellar probe that would go at a distance of one thousand astronomical units away from Earth. If it was launched, it would be the farthest space probe ever, even farther than Voyager 1. The proposal was made by NASA.

The spacecraft was a proposed nuclear electric rocket using a fission reactor and an ion engine to reach a distance of 1000 astronomical units in 50 years,[1] there were some instruments proposed for the TAU spacecraft included a telescope for observations and an another telescope for communications from Earth.[2]

Mission

The main goal of this mission was to improve measurements to the distance of stars in the Milky Way and to study the heliopause and the interstellar medium.[3] After the launch, TAU would speed up to 106 kilometers per second. One of the tasks of TAU would be a flyby to Pluto,[4] but in 2015 the New Horizons probe reached Pluto.

The TAU spacecraft would have been launched into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 2005-2010. Later it would leave Earth in 250 days and leave the Solar System in 700 days, The spacecraft would have reached 200 AU in 15 years, 800 AU in 41 years, and one thousand AU in fifty years.

References

  1. ↑ Etchegaray, M. I. (1987). "Preliminary scientific rationale for a voyage to a thousand astronomical units". NASA Sti/Recon Technical Report N. 87. Jet Propulsion Laboratory: 28490. Bibcode:1987STIN...8728490E.
  2. ↑ "And Now for the Stars". New Scientist. Reed Business Information. 1987. p. 33.
  3. ↑ "Tau - A Mission to a Thousand Astronomical Units" (PDF). Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-30.
  4. ↑ Joseph A. Angelo (2009). The Facts on File Dictionary of Space Technology, Revised Edition. Infobase Publishing. p. 429. ISBN 978-1-4381-0950-3.
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