I was simultaneously surprised and amused to find out that NASA's current budget, which Congress approved last November, includes a significant increase in planetary science, a go-ahead and $175 million for Europa mission, and stipulates that Europa probe must include a lander:
http://ift.tt/1ODB3js
http://ift.tt/1ODB4UH
People often complain about congressional micro-managing of NASA, but this is the kind of micro-managing I could get behind. JPL has been studying a Europa mission for a while, but under assumption it would be an orbiter only -- a lander was considered too complicated, too risky, and most likely would follow after an orbiter had mapped best landing spots. In particular, there was a concern that as the orbiter makes repeated passes through Jupiter's radiation belts, the attached lander would accumulate far too much radiation damage before its mission even started.
But now that NASA has been ordered to include a lander, it did not take them long to come up with creative solutions. The plan is not to keep the lander attached to the orbiter. When the mission arrives at Jupiter, the lander would remain at a distant orbit, well outside radiation belts, while the main probe makes multiple flybys of Europa. Two years later the lander would activate, approach Europa, and land at whatever location is by then deemed most suitable. It would use two techniques originally developed for Mars -- the skycrane and the airbags, -- in order to not contaminate the landing site with rocket exhaust.
The most recent issue of "Astronomy" magazine has an interview with House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Culberson, who brags that "Europa lander is the only mission it is illegal for NASA not to fly."
http://ift.tt/1ODB3js
http://ift.tt/1ODB4UH
People often complain about congressional micro-managing of NASA, but this is the kind of micro-managing I could get behind. JPL has been studying a Europa mission for a while, but under assumption it would be an orbiter only -- a lander was considered too complicated, too risky, and most likely would follow after an orbiter had mapped best landing spots. In particular, there was a concern that as the orbiter makes repeated passes through Jupiter's radiation belts, the attached lander would accumulate far too much radiation damage before its mission even started.
But now that NASA has been ordered to include a lander, it did not take them long to come up with creative solutions. The plan is not to keep the lander attached to the orbiter. When the mission arrives at Jupiter, the lander would remain at a distant orbit, well outside radiation belts, while the main probe makes multiple flybys of Europa. Two years later the lander would activate, approach Europa, and land at whatever location is by then deemed most suitable. It would use two techniques originally developed for Mars -- the skycrane and the airbags, -- in order to not contaminate the landing site with rocket exhaust.
The most recent issue of "Astronomy" magazine has an interview with House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Culberson, who brags that "Europa lander is the only mission it is illegal for NASA not to fly."
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1oOWYjk
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