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NASA Gets $75 Million For Europa Mission
astroengine writes "It may not be a lander or an orbiter, but its something. Europa, one of Jupiter's largest moons, has been the focus of much scrutiny over its potential life-bearing qualities. It has an icy crust over a liquid water ocean and now salts have been detected on its surface, suggesting a cycling of nutrients from the surface to the interior. This only amplifies the hypothesis that Europa not only could support basic life, it could support complex life. But how can we find out? The proposed Europa Clipper received interest at NASA HQ last year as it would optimize the science while keeping the mission budget under $2 billion. It would be a spacecraft that will be in orbit around Jupiter, but make multiple flybys of Europa to assess the moon for its habitable qualities. Now, in a bill signed by President Obama and approved by lawmakers, $75 million has been allocated (for the remainder of this fiscal year) for a 'Jupiter Europa mission.' Could it represent the seed money for the Europa Clipper? We'll have to wait and see."
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there."
In Before 2001 Space Odyssey References...
Don't hide the truth NASA...you found a monolith on the moon didn't you?
The bill authorizes: “That $75,000,000 shall be for pre-formulation and/or formulation activities for a mission that meets the science goals outlined for the Jupiter Europa mission in the most recent planetary decadal survey” – H.R. 933, p. 64
Also, reading the summary, I stumbled across this gem in the bill (now law), funding for "former Soviet Union cooperative threat reduction".
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
I am a huge fan of NASA and wish the budgets between the Pentagon and NASA were switched...more bombing runs on other planets, less on our own. But why is everythng a $2 billion (before inevitable overruns) project?
Each planetary mission is somehat different, but it really seems to me that they are re-inventing the wheel every time. What about standardizing on a vehicle platform, with some set instrumentation and a little room for customization if necessary. Make each one substantial enough (RTG's for power) And then start firing these off to Mercury, moons of Jupiter, Saturn, where-ever.
The launch cost of an Atlas V or Delta IV is somehere in the neighborhood of $150 million, so the other $1.8 billion is for mission development and support?
SpaceX, here's a tip...get into the science mission hardware game too.
Five is right out.
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Europa is tough. It is theorized that there are several kilometers of ice above the liquid oceans. But they could be slushy instead, or who knows. So the first priority is doing a detailed survey to find out where the ocean begins. Once that is known, then ideas like cryobots can be developed to penetrate into it. An orbiter might be able to use very large solar arrays, but an RTG is more likely. For a cryobot, a nuclear reactor will be needed. Both of these will cost billions, so the $75 million is just how to research how much is actually needed.
Here is the actual link to the bill (now law):
"For necessary expenses, not otherwise provided for, in the conduct and support of science research and development activities, including research, development, operations, support, and services; maintenance and repair, facility planning and design; space flight, spacecraft control, and communications activities; program management; personnel and related costs, including uniforms or allowances therefor, as authorized by sections 5901 and 5902 of title 5, United States Code; travel expenses; purchase and hire of passenger motor vehicles; and purchase, lease, charter, maintenance, and operation of mission and administrative aircraft, $5,144,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2014, of which up to $14,500,000 shall be available for a reimbursable agreement with the Department of Energy for the purpose of re-establishing facilities to produce fuel required for radioisotope thermoelectric generators to enable future missions: Provided, That $75,000,000 shall be for pre-formulation and/or formulation activities for a mission that meets the science goals outlined for the Jupiter Europa mission in the most recent planetary science decadal survey: Provided further, That the formulation and development costs (with development cost as defined under section 30104 of title 51, United States Code) for the James Webb Space Telescope shall not exceed $8,000,000,000: Provided further, That should the individual identified under subsection (c)(2)(E) of section 30104 of title 51, United States Code, as responsible for the James Webb Space Telescope determine that the development cost of the program is likely to exceed that limitation, the individual shall immediately notify the Administrator and the increase shall be treated as if it meets the 30 percent threshold described in subsection (f) of section 30104."
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Oh, that's nice. Cause an extinction level event then send information back saying no live here.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
At least they aren't planning on landing (yet).... If there's no life before we land a spacecraft on the Europa, there will be afterwards.
We should probably become better at sterilizing our spacecraft before we land one on a moon where water is known to exist, and seed its oceans with earth-based life.
Indeed. We're a long ways away from having the technical know-how to drill through several kilometers of ice (and lets' face it, we really have no idea how thick the ice "crust" may be), either by robot or even manned mission. First things first.
I think something like Cassini–Huygens is probably the way to go. If I was in charge and had a good budget, I'd probably have two probes; a lander that could attempt some surface measurements, perhaps land near where surface ice is the youngest for possible signs of biological activity, and a seismometer onboard. The other probe would just smash into the moon to try to ring it like a gong to get some good seismic readings that ought to reveal more about the thickness of the ice crust, the depth of the liquid ocean beneath and data on the core. You would also have the main spaceship which could fly around the Jovian system for several years, get some data on some of the other cool Jovian satellites.
At some point we'll be able to get a probe to the liquid ocean on Europa, but until then we can take some good initial steps like we've done with Titan.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
$75 million will buy a little more than 3 F-16 Falcon fighter jets.
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What a maroon.
That cooperative threat reduction is basically helping the FSU keep track of and dismantle their nukes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn%E2%80%93Lugar_Cooperative_Threat_Reduction
- Carolyn Porco
To get good information on Europa, you really need a lander. You might not even need to drill - organics may flow up from the ocean and get frozen in the crust. But a lander is necessary to get actual samples. In fact, if they send that Curiosity clone they're planning to Europa instead of Mars again, it might get much more interesting results!
Enceladus, on the other hand, is like Soviet Russia: Because of its geysers, samples go to you.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Well Mars is a lot closer, and better understood.
You need to expend a whole lot more energy to get into Europa orbit compared to just Jupiter orbit. Plus, if you are spending all your time in the orbit of a Galilean satellite, you are spending all your time in Jupiter's radiation belts. As mentioned in the article, this would limit your spacecraft life to perhaps 100 days.
To get good information on Europa, you really need a lander. You might not even need to drill - organics may flow up from the ocean and get frozen in the crust. But a lander is necessary to get actual samples. In fact, if they send that Curiosity clone they're planning to Europa instead of Mars again, it might get much more interesting results!
There may be some fun 10 meter long ice blades ("penitentes") on the surface of Europa that would be amazing to see close up (though maybe not so great to land on). Dr Hobley: "We are expecting a band around the equator where it is spiky."
Indeed. We're a long ways away from having the technical know-how to drill through several kilometers of ice (and lets' face it, we really have no idea how thick the ice "crust" may be), either by robot or even manned mission.
I don't think it's technical know-how so much as the cost to get the drill payload there. Scientists drilled through a kilometer of antarctic ice sheet to explore the lake beneath, so we have the know-how.
The last version that I read about had them melting through the ice, instead of drilling. The probe would be hot enough to melt its way down, and leave just a wire for communications back to the surface, probably using a super hot radioactive component. It would be much lighter and easier to get there, if only they could get approval to make such a device.
Ol' Rick Dawson had a farm EIEIO
Also has an atmosphere, which makes landing a lot easier and cheaper, and an average temperature that our equipment can deal with.
Actually, the Martian atmosphere is a huge hinderance, and one of the reasons why so many missions have failed. The fundamental problem is that Mars has just enough atmosphere that you need to deal with it (heat shields, atmospheric entry, etc...) but not enough to actually be useful for anything. This is how you end up with rube-goldbergesque landing systems like what MSL used.
Landing on a planetary body without an atmosphere is actually much simpler, as you can just do a pure rocket descent. May not be as efficient, but it is certainly easier, hell they landed the NEAR Shoemaker probe on the asteroid it was orbiting, and it wasn't even designed to land (of course, the gravity on an asteroid is weak enough that you could throw a baseball on an escape trajectory, but that's another matter). The most obvious example, of course, is the Moon landings. The moon has effectively no atmosphere of any kind, yet the incredibly lightweight and delicate LEM was able to land on the surface and return to orbit with aplomb.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The mission at the Antartic was complex because we were trying to preserve the ice we were digging through (ice cores). Since what ever is being deployed on Europa isn't likely going to be able to bring back core samples the goal of just melting kilometers of ice could possibly as simple as a piece of radioactive material on a rope.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Scientists drilled through a kilometer of antarctic ice sheet to explore the lake beneath, so we have the know-how.
I'd have to disagree. That drill probably involves tens of tons of metal from the drilling platform to the well shaft to the bits. Now try to drill through a kilometer of ice with at most a few hundred kilograms of stuff for everything.
If I were doing it, the drill would just be a large piece of plutonium 238 (or maybe some other radioactive isotope with a shorter half life) completely encased with something hardcore chemically inert like platinum or iridium. There'd be a reel of fiber optic playing out behind it and you would just drop it on the ice and let it go.
Or maybe you could communicate with it via very low frequency radio waves and skip the fiber optic cable altogether.