TAU (spacecraft) | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2018-12-31

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAU_(spacecraft)


00:01:50 1 Description and mission profilesup&#91;5&#93;/sup
00:04:39 2 See also



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SUMMARY
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TAU (Thousand Astronomical Units) was a proposed unmanned space probe that would go to a distance of one thousand astronomical units (1000 AU) from the Earth and Sun by NASA/JPL in 1987 using tested technology. One scientific purpose would be to measure the distance to other stars via stellar parallax. Studies continued into 1990, working with a launch in the 2005–2010 timeframe.
It was a proposed nuclear electric rocket spacecraft that used a 1 MW fission reactor and an ion drive (with a burn time of about 10 years) to reach a distance of 1000 AU in 50 years. The primary goal of the mission was to improve parallax measurements of the distances to stars inside and outside the Milky Way, with secondary goals being the study of the heliopause, measurements of conditions in the interstellar medium, and (via communications with Earth) tests of general relativity.One of the tasks envisioned for TAU would be a flyby of Pluto. A Pluto flyby was achieved in 2015 by the New Frontiers program mission New Horizons.
Some of the instruments proposed for the design included a 1.5-meter telescope for observations and a 1-meter telescope for laser communication with Earth.After launch it would accelerate to about 106 km/s (about 22.4 AU/year) over 10 years, using xenon as propellant and a nuclear fission reactor for power.