jnosanov

Here is a poster I am working on that shows the idea of the mission:

https://magic.piktochart.com/output/65bca7d7-6405-499c-8351-86a48fbc2d15

Good question. It turns out that it requires a lot of energy to turn "up" from the plane of the ecliptic. Recall that everything is falling around the sun. Imagine then you fly off a cliff in a fighter jet. You accelerate straight down. Think about how hard it would be on the jet to make a 90 degree turn at this tremendous downward speed. That is the magnitude of the challenge faced by any vehicle intending to turn "up" at 90 degrees from the plane of the solar system.

That said, it can be done. It has only ever been done by using a gravity assist with Jupiter. Jupiter is so massive that it's gravity can significantly change the trajectory of an object orbiting the sun. For example the Ulysses spacecraft did this in order to obtain a Solar-polar orbit. Our mission concept also uses Jupiter gravity assists to go "up" and "down" relative to the ecliptic.

I wrote a paper on that very topic. In short, I believe we are entirely capable of developing, launching, and operating missions to extreme distances over many decades. The discovery of the planetary alignment that enabled the Voyager mission occurred in the early 1960s. It is now 2013 and we still communicate with the spacecraft. That's half a century including concept, design, execution, launch and operation. We did that through some of the most tumultuous decades in recent history, across many presidential administrations, many wars, etc. We are ready to start exploring the universe.

Thank you! What are you doing with your degrees?