> Why bring it back to earth? Wouldn't it be safer & less expensive to return it to ISS instead, (or is that what's implied) ?
No, that would involve a very complicated and expensive breaking maneuver to slow down the spacecraft, not to mention getting in exactly the right orbit to rendezvous with the ISS. It's much, much easier to just the payload sturdy enough to survive atmospheric entry and a crash landing.
Send two missions, one with the capture device, the other with a functioning remote-controlled robot laboratory. Leave them close to the region, set them up to explore for 50 years or so.
I know, I know, budgets. It'll 'never' happen.
But what if we just send a nano-factory with its own assembly/disassembly abilities? Feasible, 5 - 10 years on from now?
Well anyway, the point is: why bring it back, really? Just send more machines to do better jobs in space.
An object coming in from a rendezvous with Saturn would be traveling at a ludicrous speed. You would probably vaporize on lunar impact. The Earth's atmosphere can help slow it down to a reasonable velocity--otherwise you have to carry a lot more fuel to burn in a slow-down maneuver.
It can. The boost is proportional to the cos(final exit trajectory in relation to the planet, velocity of planet) -- so if the probe leaves the planet opposite to the direction it goes around the sun, it slows down.
(that is, the probe as whole can still orbit the sun in the same direction as the planet, it just needs to do it slower.
No, that would involve a very complicated and expensive breaking maneuver to slow down the spacecraft, not to mention getting in exactly the right orbit to rendezvous with the ISS. It's much, much easier to just the payload sturdy enough to survive atmospheric entry and a crash landing.