Updates Mission to a Hidden Ocean: The Europa Clipper

K_Jameson

Active member
Joined
Dec 30, 2009
Messages
1,064
Reaction score
3
Points
38
It was decided which rocket will be used? My vote is for SLS
 

barrygolden

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 3, 2009
Messages
936
Reaction score
291
Points
78
Location
North of Houston
what happened to the icy moon orbiter ? a craft to orbiter the moon.

in orbiter the sls is far enough along to launch any probe. I think there was an older Europa orbiter in OH that could be mated to the SLS.
 

DaveS

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Donator
Beta Tester
Joined
Feb 4, 2008
Messages
9,429
Reaction score
680
Points
203
what happened to the icy moon orbiter ? a craft to orbiter the moon.

in orbiter the sls is far enough along to launch any probe. I think there was an older Europa orbiter in OH that could be mated to the SLS.
Are you talking about the Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter (JIMO)? It never got anywhere. It got cancelled in 2005. You must have it confused with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) which launched successfully in 2009.
 
Last edited:

Unstung

Active member
Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
1,712
Reaction score
3
Points
38
Location
Milky Way
The White House budget supports the Europa Clipper orbiter, but provides no funding for a lander. However, this is not stopping NASA from continuing research on a landed spacecraft.


SpaceNews: "Europa lander work continues despite budget uncertainty"
The NASA team studying a lander mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa says their work is continuing even though the White House is requesting no funding for the mission in its latest budget.

In a presentation at a meeting of the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science at the National Academies here March 29, Barry Goldstein of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that ongoing studies of the proposed lander are continuing, including a mission concept review scheduled for June.

“We still have enough funding to make it through the end of the year for development,” he said. “We’re going to pursue the mission concept review and let the chips fall where they may as we proceed.”

The administration’s fiscal year 2018 budget blueprint, released March 16, proposed a record-high $1.9 billion for NASA’s planetary science program, including support for the Europa Clipper mission that will go into orbit around Jupiter and make dozens of flybys of Europa.

However, the document explicitly ruled out funding for the follow-on lander mission. “To preserve the balance of NASA’s science portfolio and maintain flexibility to conduct missions that were determined to be more important by the science community, the Budget provides no funding for a multi-billion-dollar mission to land on Europa,” the document stated.

The lander mission, along with Europa Clipper, has enjoyed strong support from Congress, notably from Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA and an advocate of exploration of the icy moon that scientists believe is potentially habitable. Culberson, in recent years, has provided funding for Europa Clipper well above any administration request and at one point called for launching both Europa Clipper and the lander simultaneously.

Culberson did not mention the budget proposal in brief comments at the end of the public lecture about Europa exploration here March 29, but did reiterate his support for sending both orbiter and lander missions there.

[...]

The article later mentions a Science Definition Team report for the Europa lander that includes a notional payload and more. The 264 page report was released earlier this year and can be found here. The baseline launch scenario is in 2025 aboard the SLS, reaching Jupiter in 2030 after an Earth Gravity Assist. The lander will then spend an additional 18 months preforming flybys of the Galilean moons to lower its orbit. Once on Europa, the lander's "primary goal is to search for evidence of life on Europa. The other goals are to assess the habitability of Europa by directly analyzing material from the surface, and to characterize the surface and subsurface to support future robotic exploration of Europa and its ocean" (NASA). Batteries were chosen to power the mission for around 20 days because of the harsh radiation environment at Europa.

PIA21048_figB.jpg

by M. Carroll
 

richfororbit

Active member
Joined
Jul 8, 2013
Messages
609
Reaction score
26
Points
43
Location
Greater London
The budget doesn't include a lander mission, quite right. That was a crucial part of sending a mission to Europa, not just another orbital mission only.
 

Unstung

Active member
Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
1,712
Reaction score
3
Points
38
Location
Milky Way
NASASpaceFlight.com: "Europa Clipper’s launch date dependent on SLS Mobile Launcher readiness"
NASA has completed an important three day Technical Interchange Meeting regarding the agency’s upcoming flagship Europa Clipper mission. The probe, set to launch on the first science mission of the SLS rocket, currently holds a No Earlier Than launch date of 4 June 2022 – a date that is highly dependent on the SLS Mobile Launcher’s readiness and a desire/need to build a completely new Mobile Launcher for crewed SLS missions beyond EM-1.

[...]

Business Insider: "NASA finally has the map it needs to explore Europa for signs of alien life"

Earth and Space Science News: "Geologic Map of Europa Highlights Targets for Future Exploration"

europa-geologic-map-embed-cropped_lc_final.png


USGS presentation of the unfinished map
 
Last edited:

statickid

CatDog from Deimos
Donator
Joined
Nov 23, 2008
Messages
1,683
Reaction score
4
Points
38
"Hello, my name is Gray-gar Molk-tuko I come from the land of Mottled Chaos, where the albedo varies in irregular patterns."
 

Urwumpe

Not funny anymore
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
Messages
37,588
Reaction score
2,312
Points
203
Location
Wolfsburg
Preferred Pronouns
Sire

Unstung

Active member
Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
1,712
Reaction score
3
Points
38
Location
Milky Way
SpaceNews: "NASA budget proposal continues debate on when and how to launch Europa Clipper"
[...]

The 2019 budget proposal, released Feb. 12, offers $264.7 million for the mission, which would send the spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter and make dozens of flybys of Europa, the potentially habitable icy moon of the giant planet. That’s down from the $425 million the administration requested for the mission in 2018.

Congress has yet to pass a final appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018, more than four and a half months into the current year. The mission received $237.4 million in 2017, and a House version of a 2018 appropriations bill provided $495 million to be shared by Europa Clipper and a follow-on lander that is still in an early phase of studies. That bill came out of the commerce, justice and science appropriations subcommittee, whose chairman, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), is a vigorous advocate for missions to Europa.

The projections for future spending for the mission, included in the 2019 budget proposal, do not foresee significant increases. They call for another decrease, to $200 million, in 2020, then rising to about $360 million per year from 2021 through 2023.

Despite that funding profile, the budget proposal moves up the launch of the mission by a year from previous agency plans. “The budget allows us to pull the Europa Clipper in,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division, in a presentation at a meeting of the Planetary Science Advisory Committee here Feb. 21. “Last year’s budget said we would be able to launch it in 2026. Now we have the funding necessary for us to be to launch it in 2025.”

Green didn’t explain how the funding profile accelerates the launch, but a launch in either 2025 or 2026 would conflict with language in previous appropriations bills calling for a launch of the mission by 2022. The House version of the 2018 spending bill retains that 2022 launch requirement.

[...]

NASA has studied launching Europa Clipper on both SLS and on the most powerful variant of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5. SLS offers the ability to fly a fast, direct route to Jupiter, with the spacecraft arriving at the planet less than three years after launch. The Atlas 5 would take more than six years to get Europa Clipper to Jupiter, and require flybys of both Venus and Earth to do so.

NASA’s 2019 budget request notes those advantages for SLS, but concludes, “the additional costs of adding an SLS flight for the Clipper outweigh the benefits.” It also states that SLS “will be focused on supporting the Administration’s new space exploration strategy and prioritizing the return of astronauts to the surface of the Moon.” An SLS launch of Europa Clipper, it notes, could not take place sooner than 2024 “without disrupting current NASA human exploration plans.”

[...]


*merged two Europa Clipper threads so there will be one comprehensive thread
 
Last edited:

MaverickSawyer

Acolyte of the Probe
Joined
Apr 11, 2011
Messages
3,919
Reaction score
5
Points
61
Location
Wichita
Well, at least they're not pinning all their hopes on an SLS launch... Though, once Falcon heavy is proven, that may become an option.
 

Unstung

Active member
Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
1,712
Reaction score
3
Points
38
Location
Milky Way
NASA: "Radiation Maps of Jupiter’s Moon Europa: Key to Future Missions"

{colsp=2}
pia22479-16.jpg
|
europa20180723aa-16.jpg
Radiation from Jupiter can destroy molecules on Europa’s surface. Material from Europa’s ocean that ends up on the surface will be bombarded by radiation, possibly destroying any biosignatures, or chemical signs that could imply the presence of life.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
| Map of Europa’s surface showing the regions that receive the highest radiation dose (pink).
Credits: U.S. Geological Survey, NASA/JPL-Caltech, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Nature Astronomy​

[...]

“If we want to understand what’s going on at the surface of Europa and how that links to the ocean underneath, we need to understand the radiation,” [JPL scientist Tom] Nordheim said. “When we examine materials that have come up from the subsurface, what are we looking at? Does this tell us what is in the ocean, or is this what happened to the materials after they have been radiated?”

Using data from Galileo’s flybys of Europa two decades ago and electron measurements from NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, Nordheim and his team looked closely at the electrons blasting the moon’s surface. They found that the radiation doses vary by location. The harshest radiation is concentrated in zones around the equator, and the radiation lessens closer to the poles.

Mapped out, the harsh radiation zones appear as oval-shaped regions, connected at the narrow ends, that cover more than half of the moon.

“This is the first prediction of radiation levels at each point on Europa’s surface and is important information for future Europa missions,” said Chris Paranicas, a co-author from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

Now scientists know where to find regions least altered by radiation, which could be crucial information for the JPL-led Europa Clipper, NASA’s mission to orbit Jupiter and monitor Europa with about 45 close flybys. The spacecraft may launch as early as 2022 and will carry cameras, spectrometers, plasma and radar instruments to investigate the composition of the moon’s surface, its ocean, and material that has been ejected from the surface.

In his new paper, Nordheim didn’t stop with a two-dimensional map. He went deeper, gauging how far below the surface the radiation penetrates, and building 3D models of the most intense radiation on Europa. The results tell us how deep scientists need to dig or drill, during a potential future Europa lander mission, to find any biosignatures that might be preserved.

The answer varies, from 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) in the highest-radiation zones – down to less than 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) deep in regions of Europa at middle- and high-latitudes, toward the moon’s poles.

To reach that conclusion, Nordheim tested the effect of radiation on amino acids, basic building blocks for proteins, to figure out how Europa’s radiation would affect potential biosignatures. Amino acids are among the simplest molecules that qualify as a potential biosignature, the paper notes.

“The radiation that bombards Europa’s surface leaves a fingerprint,” said Kevin Hand, co-author of the new research and project scientist for the potential Europa Lander mission. “If we know what that fingerprint looks like, we can better understand the nature of any organics and possible biosignatures that might be detected with future missions, be they spacecraft that fly by or land on Europa.

Europa Clipper’s mission team is examining possible orbit paths, and proposed routes pass over many regions of Europa that experience lower levels of radiation, Hand said. “That’s good news for looking at potentially fresh ocean material that has not been heavily modified by the fingerprint of radiation.”

[...]
 
Last edited:

Unstung

Active member
Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
1,712
Reaction score
3
Points
38
Location
Milky Way
John Culberson lost reelection and the Europa Clipper team is looking at using the Falcon Heavy with a Star 48 kick stage. The spacecraft would make it to Jupiter with one Earth gravity assist like Juno. This would not affect the design of the spacecraft because it won't have to approach the Sun for a Venus gravity assist. However, it'll still take longer than under years for a direct trajectory on the SLS, a rocket that has support from other representatives.

There are other politicians, and the current administrator, that support the Europa Clipper and Lander. Regardless, the Clipper's launch vehicle and the Lander mission have become more uncertain.

Ars Technica: "A congressman’s loss clouds the future of two demanding missions to Europa"
 

Unstung

Active member
Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
1,712
Reaction score
3
Points
38
Location
Milky Way
[ame="https://twitter.com/Dr_ThomasZ/status/1103032698715717633"]Thomas Zurbuchen on Twitter: "Currently in its preliminary design phase, the mission’s initial planned magnetometer’s flight hardware hasn’t been built yet. We have enough time before launch to find a simpler magnetometer that will help scientists understand Europa’s ocean. Details: https://t.co/YBCq3w6IxH"[/ame]
 

RGClark

Mathematician
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
1,635
Reaction score
1
Points
36
Location
Philadelphia
Website
exoscientist.blogspot.com
As a result of the new Ocean Worlds Program, NASA will be including Titan and Enceladus proposals in the next New Frontiers mission. As for Europa, the Planetary Science program is still not certain of which booster will be used. According to Van Kane, the idea for an ESA daughter spacecraft has actually been dropped. This will enable a four-and-a-half year EGA trajectory to Jupiter using a Delta IV Heavy.

Future Planetary Exploration: "Defining the Missions for the Ocean Worlds"


Possible%2Blaunch%2Bplan.jpg
"The current baseline plan for launching the Europa multiple flyby mission is the Space Launch System. A new backup plan under consideration could reduce the alternative flight from over seven years to less than five years. Credit: NASA/JPL"

Presentations:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/meetings/jul2013/presentations/Clipper_Summary.pdf
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/ssbsite/documents/webpage/ssb_169419.pdf


---------- Post added at 09:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:14 PM ----------

I better not forget the lander!



Europa%2Blander%2Bmission.jpg
|
Europa%2Blander.jpg
"A Europa lander, whose design could be used for landing on other ocean worlds, would consist of four major elements, a carrier craft that would also relay the lander's data, a solid rocket motor to slow the lander, a sky crane descent stage, and the lander itself." | There's no caption for this so, yo dawg, I think that's a pretty slick Pathfinder-esque lander. Not only is it gonna violate David Bowieman's orders, it may even drill into the forbidden world. That's like far out. Star Child gonna be mad. Do people even read this anyways?

Thanks for that. I had forgotten that a lander was under consideration.

Bob Clark
 
Top