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WASHINGTON – A NASA mission on a potentially habitable moon of Jupiter has been subjected to a major review, despite uncertainties as to when, or how, it will be launched.
NASA announced on August 19 that it had officially confirmed to the Europa Clipper mission to begin its next phase of development, called Phase C. It will cover the final design of the spacecraft, and then will assembled and tested.
"We are all excited about the decision that will make the Europa Clipper mission a decisive step towards uncovering the mysteries of this ocean world," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's Deputy Science Administrator, in a statement announcing this important event. .
Europa Clipper will come into orbit around Jupiter and will do dozens of approaches closer to Europa, one of the largest moons on the planet. Europa has an icy surface below which, according to most scientists, it is a deep ocean of liquid waters. Combined with the indoor heat source that prevents the ocean from freezing and the presence of organic compounds, Europa has the basic requirements to support life.
While the programmatic milestone achieved by Europa Clipper, known as NASA's Key Decision Point, is the point at which NASA sets the timing and budget for the mission, the exact moment when Europa Clipper will be launched. is not clear yet. In its statement announcing the confirmation of the mission, NASA said the satellite was ready to be launched as early as 2023, when the mission officially set its launch preparation date for 2025.
This uncertainty is related to how the mission will be launched. The preferred mission launch option is the space launch system, which will allow the spacecraft to travel directly to Jupiter without gravitational assistance and arrive within three years of launch. The wording of the credit invoices for fiscal year 2019 and prior years have also enjoined NASA to use the SLS.
However, in its budget request for fiscal year 2020, NASA proposed to launch Europa Clipper with the help of a commercial launcher, such as the Delta 4 Heavy or the Falcon Heavy, which which would save several hundred million dollars, even though the transit time for Jupiter would be about seven years. A report released in May by NASA's Office of the Inspector General downplayed the savings achieved by using an alternative launcher, but said it was not possible to launch Europa Clipper on an SLS in 2023 because there was would have no SLS available for this mission.
The announcement did not include a cost estimate for the mission, but agency spokeswoman Alana Johnson said on August 21 that the agency's core engagement for the mission was 4 , $ 25 billion, covering all costs of the mission. NASA's Inspector General's report cites an assessment conducted last October by the Mission's Permanent Review Panel, which estimated the cost of the mission at between $ 3.5 billion and $ 4 billion.
Despite the launcher and schedule uncertainty, other aspects of the mission are going well. "Things seem to be going reasonably well," said Robert Pappalardo, a scientist at the Europa Clipper project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, at a meeting of the Outer Planetary Evaluation Group (OPAG) in Boulder, Colo. .
Earlier this year, NASA decided to replace the spacecraft magnetometer instrument that had experienced significant cost overruns by a less complex magnetometer. It was questioned whether the new magnetometer would have the precision needed to achieve scientific objectives, such as the measurement of the depth of Europa's submarine ocean. At the OPAG meeting, Pappalardo and others stated that modifications to the operation of the instrument, namely periodic periodic jets of the spacecraft to calibrate it, should allow sufficient accuracy to be achieved to achieve these results. scientific objectives.
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