The Humminbird vehicle is a tiny cubesat equipped with a rocket propulsion system. It can act as a universal platform for a variety of small scientific instruments. This makes it an ideal candidate for low-cost missions to other celestial bodies.
Low-cost missions to other planets
Typically, scientific missions to other planets are extremely expensive and complex vehicles that take decades to develop. Therefore, every accident becomes a real tragedy for their developers. But it’s possible that there should soon be a way to use very inexpensive machines in the early stages.
At least, representatives of the California-based company Micocosm, Inc. claim so. They have developed a device called Hummingbird. It is basically an ultra-lightweight platform on which private companies and research institutions will be able to place a variety of instruments, from cameras to magnetic field detectors.
The overall design is based on cubesats, which have been in use in earth orbit for quite some time. It was protected by anti-radiation shields so that it could survive months outside the Earth’s magnetic field, and had a small engine attached.
The Humminbird engine runs on hydrazine. It weighs only 25 kg dry and 80 kg fully fueled. This is enough to provide the vehicle with the ability to gain an additional 3.5 km/s in orbit.
What the Humminbird will be used for
The main thing the creators suggest using the Humminbird for is missions to near-Earth asteroids. When the next such rock flies past our planet, such a vehicle could carry the hardware that will study it during its passage.
Another possible use for the Humminbird is to take scientific instruments to the Lagrangian points of the Earth-Moon system. They are interesting because gravitational forces are balanced there, and the spacecraft can stay in them for a long time without fuel consumption. In addition, the vehicle is proposed to be used in missions to Mars and Venus.
However, this is all a matter for the future. So far, it is not clear from the document even how the device will perform operations of communication with the ground and orientation in space. In addition, its project has failed to get money from NASA for further development.
Provided by phys.org
