In-situ exploration of Titan's atmosphere

In-situ exploration of Titan's atmosphere

Silvestri, N.

Ambrosius, B.A.C. (mentor)

Aerospace Engineering

Space Engineering

Astrodynamics & Space Missions

2010-08-31

Saturn’s moon Titan is unique in that it is the only moon in the Solar System with a significant atmosphere. Its atmosphere is thicker than the Earth’s and it contains several layers of hazes. Knowing the properties of the hazes is crucial for understanding the existence and evolution of this atmosphere and the dynamical processes that take place. For a spacecraft instrument, the highest haze layers hamper the view on the lower layers. Instead, a hot-air balloon floating through Titan’s atmosphere, as proposed in the Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM) to ESA, appears to be the ideal in-situ element for the desired science goals. The haze particles can be studied by an instrument on the balloon’s gondola that measures sunlight that has been scattered by the haze particles. We present SPEX, the Spectropolarimeter for Planetary EXploration, as an instrument to retrieve information on the number density, composition, size and shape of the haze particles. As payload on the TSSM balloon, SPEX would measure simultaneously the radiance and degree and direction of linear polarization of scattered sunlight with wavelengths from about 0.4 to 0.8 µm. In particular the degree of linear polarization of this light is known to be very sensitive to the microphysical properties (size, shape, composition) of the scattering particles. SPEX has originally been designed as Mars orbiter payload, with 7 fixed downward- and 2 fixed limb-viewing apertures.

Titan
SPEX
balloon mission

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f6cc8307-26a3-48a7-b62a-d898ed2eb348

2010-09-24

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2010 Silvestri, N.