Ok, now I understand the type of maneuver you are talking about. That definitely does make sense. I wonder if our hypothetical probe has knowledge early enough about the orbital trajectories of the stars close to the black hole, such that it can adjust its approach to pull off something like that without too much fuel cost. Of course it’s a long trip and there is plenty of time to plan, but it seems that any forward-pointing telescope would tend to be at significant risk while traveling at 0.8c into a galaxy, let alone 0.99c before the primary burn. However, “not likely to survive if deployed for the whole trip” is not the same as “can be deployed for long enough to make the necessary observations.” One advantage to a “simple” powered flyby of the black hole is that at least you know well ahead of time where it’s going to be, and have a reasonably good estimate of its mass.
Alternatively, could it get that information prior to launch, and if so are the trajectories of those stars stable enough that they would be where they need to be after millions of years of travel? My guess is no.
Yeah, those star trajectories definitely wouldn’t be stable enough.
I guess even with that simpler maneuver (powered flyby near a black hole), you still need to monitor all the stuff orbiting there and plan ahead, otherwise there’s a fair chance you’ll crash into something.
You’re right, that you wouldn’t want to approach the black hole itself but rather one of the orbiting stars.
But even with high velocity, if there are a lot of orbiting stars, you may tune your trajectory to have multiple close encounters.
Ok, now I understand the type of maneuver you are talking about. That definitely does make sense. I wonder if our hypothetical probe has knowledge early enough about the orbital trajectories of the stars close to the black hole, such that it can adjust its approach to pull off something like that without too much fuel cost. Of course it’s a long trip and there is plenty of time to plan, but it seems that any forward-pointing telescope would tend to be at significant risk while traveling at 0.8c into a galaxy, let alone 0.99c before the primary burn. However, “not likely to survive if deployed for the whole trip” is not the same as “can be deployed for long enough to make the necessary observations.” One advantage to a “simple” powered flyby of the black hole is that at least you know well ahead of time where it’s going to be, and have a reasonably good estimate of its mass.
Alternatively, could it get that information prior to launch, and if so are the trajectories of those stars stable enough that they would be where they need to be after millions of years of travel? My guess is no.
Yeah, those star trajectories definitely wouldn’t be stable enough.
I guess even with that simpler maneuver (powered flyby near a black hole), you still need to monitor all the stuff orbiting there and plan ahead, otherwise there’s a fair chance you’ll crash into something.