ISM Blog 17 - Spring break work!

Though I had a lot of other obligations I managed to do a lot over my final product. Firstly, I had a mentor visit which allowed me to learn a few new things but mainly acted as reinforcement for my final product. I worked on power systems where I learned a bounty of information on RTGs or Radioisotope Thermal generators, how they power spacecraft as well as a constraint for my space probe, Plutonium, the main source of fuel for RTGs has only recently restarted production and as a result RTGs may be limited. Another thing I learned was that Uranus is a more compelling science target for the planet itself while Neptune is more popular for its moon Triton. As a result, my atmospheric probe may be more useful with a Uranus orbiter although I will still keep the intended destination on Neptune. Power wise, I would use batteries with the atmospheric probe while the relay is powered by one RTG unfortunately this also means that this mission becomes improbable for discovery class funding. This week (Wednesday) I have another mentor visit and we can hopefully discuss some hiccups with trajectory and launch windows as the software is very difficult.