Europa Clipper

So this...
the torsional loads were about three times higher than comparable rockets."
Click to expand...
is factually incorrect.
Let's hope that this would not be the basis of any decision.
 
Last edited:
TomcatViP said:
So this...
the torsional loads were about three times higher than comparable rockets."
Click to expand...
is factually incorrect.
Let's hope that this would be not the basis of any decision.
Click to expand...
I suppose it will be interesting to see the report though how a politician and his staff will be able to interpret what is no doubt a highly technical analysis requiring specialist knowledge to understand.
 
You really should take a look at the letter that Rep. Babin sent to Steve Jurczyk on this whole Europa Clipper/SLS launch decision thing. I gotta tell you, I have neen reading letters between Congress and NASA for 25 years. Some have been rather pointed, confrontational, and snarky. And I have certainly written more than my fair share of snarky gotcha PAO and FOIA requests to NASA designed to make sure that no stone is left unturned. But I have to say that in all the time I have been editing NASAWatch I have never seen a letter from Congress to NASA requesting formation wherein the quasi-legalistic definitions of what constitutes the requested information - and how it is to be identified, sourced, and transmitted to Congress - that uses three times the words of what information is actually being asked for.

Rep. Babin is in the minority, so there is only so much mischief that he can do with whatever NASA provides. But he clearly has some legal eagle on his staff who is trying use their law degree to catch NASA in the act of doing something bad or not being responsive - however trivial the infraction may be.
Click to expand...

Letter on the link below.

nasawatch.com

Congress Uses Legal Snark To Ask NASA About SLS And Europa

Babin Requests Information on Europa Clipper Mission and SLS Use ” I’m expecting a prompt response from NASA answering our questions on their analyses of launch vehicles, as well as cost, schedule, and mission impacts.” Letter From Rep. Babin To NASA Administrator Jurczyk Regarding Europa...
nasawatch.com nasawatch.com
 
Flyaway said:
FighterJock said:
Flyaway said:
www.jpl.nasa.gov

NASA’s Europa Clipper Builds Hardware, Moves Toward Assembly

Jupiter’s moon Europa may have the potential to harbor life. The spacecraft will use multiple flybys of the moon to investigate the habitability of this ocean world.
www.jpl.nasa.gov www.jpl.nasa.gov
Click to expand...

I take it that there will be no surface lander or submersible on Europa Clipper?
Click to expand...
Correct.
Click to expand...

I hope that NASA does a follow on mission that carries either a submersible or a lander, only then will we know for sure that Europa has some form of life in it’s ocean.
 
FighterJock said:
Flyaway said:
FighterJock said:
Flyaway said:
www.jpl.nasa.gov

NASA’s Europa Clipper Builds Hardware, Moves Toward Assembly

Jupiter’s moon Europa may have the potential to harbor life. The spacecraft will use multiple flybys of the moon to investigate the habitability of this ocean world.
www.jpl.nasa.gov www.jpl.nasa.gov
Click to expand...

I take it that there will be no surface lander or submersible on Europa Clipper?
Click to expand...
Correct.
Click to expand...

I hope that NASA does a follow on mission that carries either a submersible or a lander, only then will we know for sure that Europa has some form of life in it’s ocean.
Click to expand...
There was proposals for a Europa lander but last I read it was very much on the back burner due to cost and complexity.
 
The launch of Europa Clipper has been awarded to Space X and the Falcon Heavy in an announcement that absolutely everyone expected once it was freed from SLS.

www.nasa.gov

NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Europa Clipper Mission - NASA

NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for Earth’s first mission to conduct
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1418666356619218946
View: https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1418666356619218946


This is an absolute bargain. According to the White House OMB, launching on the Space Launch System rocket would have cost "over $2 billion." So SpaceX just saved the federal government $2 billion.
Click to expand...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1418673761977442307
View: https://twitter.com/brickmack/status/1418673761977442307


OIG says the marginal cost of a block 1 SLS is 886 million. That doesn't include the billion a year in operating costs for the facilities it uses, or ongoing development work
Click to expand...
 
The mission cadence is reported as follows:

Launch in October 2024
Mars in February 2025
Earth in December 2026
Arriving at Europa in April 2030.
 
Astronomers Get Ready to Probe Europa’s Hidden Ocean for Life

Planetary scientists are discovering more about Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, one of Earth’s nearest ocean worlds—places like Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus that have bodies of salty water and other liquids that could be amenable to the emergence of life. They’re presenting new findings this week about Europa’s cracked surface, hidden ocean, and geological activity at the biggest annual planetary conference in the United States, organized by the American Astronomical Society, held virtually for the second year in a row. The research serves as a prelude to tantalizing opportunities for new observations by upcoming missions being dispatched by NASA and the European Space Agency.

“Europa is fantastic. Of anywhere in the solar system, outside the Earth, it has the greatest potential, I think, for maintaining a habitable environment that could support microbial life,” says Michael Bland, a US Geological Survey space scientist in Flagstaff, Arizona. After modeling the moon’s dynamic, rocky interior, Bland believes the conditions on its deep seafloor could be amenable to life, according to new work that he and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Catherine Elder presented at the conference on Monday.
Click to expand...

After that, Bland, Babcock, and their colleagues look forward to NASA’s Europa Clipper, a mission years in the making that’s planned for launch in 2024. “The Europa Clipper will assess Europa’s habitability and how we might be able to use these investigations for other ocean worlds, thinking about the potential for life there as well,” says Kathleen Craft, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, who will be presenting at the conference on Thursday.

The car-sized orbiter, with 100-foot solar panels unfurled on each side, will use radar, radio signals, and gravity science to study the structure of the moon, including measuring the thickness of the ice shell and the depth of the underground ocean. It will also try to snag samples from its plumes, which could include droplets from the ocean itself that might reveal information about how conducive to life it really is, Craft says. A baguette-sized instrument will ingest gas and vapor, analyze and classify the contents, and then beam the crucial data back to scientists at home.

Its mission also includes conducting aerial surveillance for a potential lander mission to Europa, which could scoop up material on the surface, or drill down for it, looking for that coveted evidence of extraterrestrial lifeforms.
Click to expand...

www.wired.com

Astronomers Get Ready to Probe Europa’s Hidden Ocean for Life

Jupiter’s most enigmatic moon, one of a few ocean worlds in the solar system, will be the target of upcoming missions by NASA and the European Space Agency.
www.wired.com www.wired.com
 
Flyaway said:
Astronomers Get Ready to Probe Europa’s Hidden Ocean for Life

Planetary scientists are discovering more about Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, one of Earth’s nearest ocean worlds—places like Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus that have bodies of salty water and other liquids that could be amenable to the emergence of life. They’re presenting new findings this week about Europa’s cracked surface, hidden ocean, and geological activity at the biggest annual planetary conference in the United States, organized by the American Astronomical Society, held virtually for the second year in a row. The research serves as a prelude to tantalizing opportunities for new observations by upcoming missions being dispatched by NASA and the European Space Agency.

“Europa is fantastic. Of anywhere in the solar system, outside the Earth, it has the greatest potential, I think, for maintaining a habitable environment that could support microbial life,” says Michael Bland, a US Geological Survey space scientist in Flagstaff, Arizona. After modeling the moon’s dynamic, rocky interior, Bland believes the conditions on its deep seafloor could be amenable to life, according to new work that he and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Catherine Elder presented at the conference on Monday.
Click to expand...

After that, Bland, Babcock, and their colleagues look forward to NASA’s Europa Clipper, a mission years in the making that’s planned for launch in 2024. “The Europa Clipper will assess Europa’s habitability and how we might be able to use these investigations for other ocean worlds, thinking about the potential for life there as well,” says Kathleen Craft, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, who will be presenting at the conference on Thursday.

The car-sized orbiter, with 100-foot solar panels unfurled on each side, will use radar, radio signals, and gravity science to study the structure of the moon, including measuring the thickness of the ice shell and the depth of the underground ocean. It will also try to snag samples from its plumes, which could include droplets from the ocean itself that might reveal information about how conducive to life it really is, Craft says. A baguette-sized instrument will ingest gas and vapor, analyze and classify the contents, and then beam the crucial data back to scientists at home.

Its mission also includes conducting aerial surveillance for a potential lander mission to Europa, which could scoop up material on the surface, or drill down for it, looking for that coveted evidence of extraterrestrial lifeforms.
Click to expand...

www.wired.com

Astronomers Get Ready to Probe Europa’s Hidden Ocean for Life

Jupiter’s most enigmatic moon, one of a few ocean worlds in the solar system, will be the target of upcoming missions by NASA and the European Space Agency.
www.wired.com www.wired.com
Click to expand...

I cannot wait for Europa Clipper to launch, I have been wanting a dedicated Europa mission ever since the Voyager
missions and of course the Galileo probe. There is so much that we do not know about Europa and the potential for life bellow the frozen surface.
 
That may be among the least surprising discoveries in Jovian exploration history but hopefully it will lend more weight to the case for a Europa lander mission. The monolith can go suck a Trojan.
 
Opportunistic Minnow said:
That may be among the least surprising discoveries in Jovian exploration history but hopefully it will lend more weight to the case for a Europa lander mission. The monolith can go suck a Trojan.
Click to expand...

Hopefully NASA will get the necessary funding for a future Europa lander mission after the Europa Clipper has finished its mission, so I would think that a lander will be ready for launch sometime next decade.
 
Various updates:

http://spaceref.com/astrobiology/na...captures-breathtaking-first-light-images.html

Arizona State University (ASU) scientists and engineers building the Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS) for NASA's Europa Clipper passed a major hurdle recently by capturing the first successful test images from this complex infrared camera, known as "first light" images.
Click to expand...

www.jpl.nasa.gov

A Few Steps Closer to Europa: Spacecraft Hardware Makes Headway

Take a closer look at the complex choreography involved in building NASA’s Europa Clipper as the mission to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa approaches its 2024 launch date.
www.jpl.nasa.gov www.jpl.nasa.gov

www.jpl.nasa.gov

Are Water Plumes Spraying From Europa? NASA’s Europa Clipper Is on the Case

Finding plumes at Europa is an exciting prospect, but scientists warn it’ll be tricky, even from up close.
www.jpl.nasa.gov www.jpl.nasa.gov

https://europa.nasa.gov/news/38/mission-dispatch-tweaking-the-trajectory/
 
Last edited:
NASA Begins Assembly of Europa Clipper Spacecraft
March 3, 2022

Science instruments and other hardware for the spacecraft will come together in the mission’s final phase before a launch to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa in 2024.

When it’s fully assembled, NASA’s Europa Clipper will be as large as an SUV with solar arrays long enough to span a basketball court – all the better to help power the spacecraft during its journey to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. And just about every detail of the spacecraft will have been hand-crafted.

The assembly effort is already underway in clean rooms at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Now, engineering components and science instruments are beginning to stream in from across the country and Europe. Before year’s end, most of the flight hardware – including a suite of nine science instruments – is expected to be complete.

The main body of the spacecraft is a giant 10-foot-tall (3-meter-tall) propulsion module, designed and constructed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, with help from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and JPL. The module, fitted with electronics, radios, cabling, and the propulsion subsystem, will ship to JPL this spring. Europa Clipper’s 10-foot-wide (3-meter-wide) high-gain antenna also will be arriving at the Lab soon.

“We’re moving into the phase where we see the pieces all come together as a flight system,” said Europa Clipper Project Manager Jan Chodas of JPL. “It will be very exciting to see the hardware, the flight software, and the instruments get integrated and tested. To me, it’s the next level of discovery. We’ll learn how the system we designed will actually perform.”
See more images of Europa Clipper coming together

Europa, which scientists are confident harbors an internal ocean with twice the amount of water in Earth’s oceans combined, may currently have conditions suitable for supporting life. Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter and conduct multiple close flybys of Europa to gather data on the moon’s atmosphere, surface, and interior. Its sophisticated payload will investigate everything from the depth and salinity of the ocean to the thickness of the ice crust to the characteristics of potential plumes that may be venting subsurface water into space.

The first science instrument to be completed was delivered to JPL last week by a team at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. The ultraviolet spectrograph, called Europa-UVS, will search above the surface of Europa for signs of plumes. The instrument collects ultraviolet light, then separates the wavelengths of that light to help determine the composition of the moon’s surface and gases in the atmosphere.

As each instrument arrives at JPL, it will be integrated with the spacecraft and re-tested. Engineers need to be sure the instruments can communicate with the flight computer, spacecraft software, and the power subsystem.

Once all the components have been integrated to form the large flight system, Europa Clipper will move to JPL’s enormous thermal vacuum chamber for testing that simulates the harsh environment of deep space. There also will be intense vibration testing to ensure Europa Clipper can withstand the jostling of launch. Then it’s off to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for an October 2024 launch.

For the leaders of this mission, seeing the engineering components come together with the fleet of instruments will be especially moving, knowing how hard their teams have pushed to work through the coronavirus pandemic.

“I don’t know how I’ll feel, seeing this come together. I suspect it will be somewhat overwhelming,” said JPL’s Robert Pappalardo, the Europa Clipper project scientist. “It’s happening – it’s becoming real. It’s becoming tangible.”

At the same time, the level of difficulty kicks up several notches as the layers of the project merge.

“All of the parallel paths of hardware and software development will start to join together in a way that’s very visible to the team,” said JPL’s Jordan Evans, the deputy project manager. “Everybody’s eyes turn toward the integrated system that’s coming together, which is exciting.”

More About the Mission

Missions such as Europa Clipper contribute to the field of astrobiology, the interdisciplinary research on the variables and conditions of distant worlds that could harbor life as we know it. While Europa Clipper is not a life-detection mission, it will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Europa and investigate whether the icy moon, with its subsurface ocean, has the capability to support life. Understanding Europa’s habitability will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential for finding life beyond our planet.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with APL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

More information about Europa can be found here:

europa.nasa.gov

www.jpl.nasa.gov

NASA Begins Assembly of Europa Clipper Spacecraft

Science instruments and other hardware for the spacecraft will come together in the mission’s final phase before a launch to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa in 2024.
www.jpl.nasa.gov www.jpl.nasa.gov
 
The cost of the mission has now risen from $4.25 billion to $5 billion, of which $100 million alone is due to Covid.

NASA Reveals Europa Clipper Cost Growth, Mars Sample Return Replan

Posted: March 21, 2022 11:54 pm ET | Last Updated: March 22, 2022 12:25 am ET | Find out why the cost for NASA's Europa Clipper mission is growing from $4.25 billion to $5 billion, and what changes are being made to the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return mission in response to concerns raised by an...
spacepolicyonline.com
 
Flyaway said:
The cost of the mission has now risen from $4.25 billion to $5 billion, of which $100 million alone is due to Covid.

NASA Reveals Europa Clipper Cost Growth, Mars Sample Return Replan

Posted: March 21, 2022 11:54 pm ET | Last Updated: March 22, 2022 12:25 am ET | Find out why the cost for NASA's Europa Clipper mission is growing from $4.25 billion to $5 billion, and what changes are being made to the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return mission in response to concerns raised by an...
spacepolicyonline.com
Click to expand...

That is not good news Flyaway, I suppose that the problems with Covid-19 cannot be helped. Let's hope that they do not find a way to cancel the mission on top of the cost rise.
 
FighterJock said:
Flyaway said:
The cost of the mission has now risen from $4.25 billion to $5 billion, of which $100 million alone is due to Covid.

NASA Reveals Europa Clipper Cost Growth, Mars Sample Return Replan

Posted: March 21, 2022 11:54 pm ET | Last Updated: March 22, 2022 12:25 am ET | Find out why the cost for NASA's Europa Clipper mission is growing from $4.25 billion to $5 billion, and what changes are being made to the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return mission in response to concerns raised by an...
spacepolicyonline.com
Click to expand...

That is not good news Flyaway, I suppose that the problems with Covid-19 cannot be helped. Let's hope that they do not find a way to cancel the mission on top of the cost rise.
Click to expand...
I cannot remember many NASA flagship programs that haven’t seen cost increases across their manufacturing phase in recent decades.
 
Europa Clipper, assemble!
This video of @NASA’s @EuropaClipper spacecraft shows it moving into JPL's main clean room, where the team will complete its assembly in preparation for launch in October 2024. Europa Clipper will explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa go.nasa.gov/3dxuOrb
Click to expand...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1559241337227997184
View: https://twitter.com/nasajpl/status/1559241337227997184

Europa Clipper Spacecraft Kicks Assembly Into High Gear..
Click to expand...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1559249937551990785
View: https://twitter.com/astrobiology/status/1559249937551990785
 
NASA's bold mission to explore Jupiter's icy moon is facing tight schedules getting instruments installed and ready for the planned 2024 launch.
Click to expand...
Europa Clipper will carry 10 key instruments, including cameras, magnetic field sensors and devices to identify materials on the moon's surface. But with less than two years to go before launch, only three of those instruments have been installed on the main spacecraft body, and five haven't yet arrived at JPL.
Click to expand...
One instrument, the Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE), is particularly worrying since engineers aren't confident enough to give the instrument a target delivery date. MISE is designed to analyze light reflecting off Europa's ice to map the composition of the surface. But the testing campaign has revealed multiple issues for engineers to work through, Larson said. "That's the one instrument right now where we have open issues that are getting work and we don't have a solid sense yet on how long it will take to get finished up."
Click to expand...
www.space.com

Europa Clipper instrument delays worry scientists eyeing 2024 launch

NASA's bold Europa Clipper mission to explore Jupiter's icy moon is facing tight schedules getting instruments installed and ready for the planned 2024 launch.
www.space.com www.space.com
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom