Space News by Jeff Foust — September 6, 2017
NASA is continuing to examine various, potentially less expensive options for a mission to land on Jupiter’s moon Europa even after completing a recent review, postponing a call for instruments for the spacecraft.
At a meeting of the Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) Sept. 6 in La Jolla, California, Curt Niebur, a program scientist in the planetary science division at NASA Headquarters, said mission planners are continuing to examine several factors, including mission cost and science return, as they evaluate the design of the mission.
The lander mission, he said, successfully passed an early-stage review called a mission concept review in June. However, he said the agency had not settled on a specific, single concept for the mission.
“As a result of that mission concept review, what we want to do is essentially continue exploring the different options we have for a Europa lander mission,” he said. “We want to continue balancing the trade amongst risk, cost and science return.”
Concepts for the lander presented earlier this year call for a spacecraft launched on a Space Launch System rocket no earlier than late 2025, arriving at Jupiter in mid-2030 and landing on Europa in late 2031. Most of the spacecraft’s estimated mass of 16.6 metric tons is propellant needed to first enter orbit around Jupiter and, later, landing on Europa itself.
A report released in February by a NASA-chartered science definition team (SDT) identified the science goals of the lander, as well as a notional suite of five instruments that could be used to achieve those goals and fit within a payload accommodation on the lander of 42.5 kilograms. The battery-powered spacecraft would operate for about 20 days after landing.
“The SDT report is the starting point,” Niebur said later in the meeting. “But accomplishing everything in the SDT report is a very expensive mission. What we’d like to see are some less expensive options.”
More:
http://spacenews.com/nasa-studying-less-expensive-options-for-europa-lander-mission/
