Europa Selected As Target of Next Flagship Mission

volcanopele writes "NASA and the European Space Agency announced today that they have selected the Europa/Jupiter System Mission as the next large mission to the outer solar system. For the last year, the Europa mission has been in competition with a proposal to send a mission to Saturn's moon Titan, as reported on Slashdot earlier. The Europa Mission includes two orbiters: one developed by NASA to orbit the icy moon Europa and another developed by ESA to orbit the solar system's largest moon, Ganymede. Both orbiters would spend up to 2.5 years in orbit around Jupiter before settling into orbit around their respective targets, studying Jupiter's satellites, rings, and of course the planet itself. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2020 and arrive at Jupiter in 2025 and 2026."

Comments

Re:glacial pace

[macraig]

I'd mod you up for recognizing a wise thought when you see one, but as it happens I've already commented in this discussion.

close but not quite

[circletimessquare]

when you go to europe you pass over the greenwich meridian, and all of your numbers convert to metric. but all of the mission parameters were calculated in imperial units. so when the rockets fired over the azores at the preprogrammed 10 fathoms per chain to slow descent, it actually came out as 10 decinewtons per centimeter. which of course leads to a splashdown in morocco, which is too hot this time of year for civilized interplanetary exploration