NASA's audacious Europa missions are getting closer to reality

[Judi Lynn]

Posted by Jason Davis

2017/02/21 21:43 UTC



NASA is boldly going to Europa—hopefully.

Two separate missions to send a flyby spacecraft and lander to Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon are steadily gaining steam. Today, NASA said the flyby craft, internally dubbed the Europa Clipper, has officially entered the preliminary design phase, having cleared a program milestone called Key Decision Point B. The lander also took another step toward reality earlier this month, when a team of scientists formally delivered a report laying out the mission's science goals and some overall engineering concepts.

Together, the missions would attempt to discover whether Europa was habitable, and directly search for signs of life—something NASA hasn't done since the Viking missions to Mars in the mid-1970s.

Neither mission is fully funded. And even in a best-case scenario, the lander mission wouldn't touch down on Europa until 2031 or 2032, meaning it could be 15 years before we know whether something is swimming under Europa's icy crust. Will the wait pay off? I spoke with two experts about this audacious pair of spacecraft, and looked into what needs to happen to make them a reality.




http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2017/nasas-audacious-europa.html

[Nictuku]

1. I'd like to thank Judi Lynn

I appreciate you taking the time to post these interesting science articles! Thank you Judi

[lastlib]

2. Hear, hear!!

Really love reading this stuff!

But I wonder: should we really be going there?

[Javaman]

3. Circa 2020: Life discovered on Europa, repukes plan to launch political rocket to get their vote. nt