Absolutely, Doug... I am not crying... there is SO many missions going on now in unmanned spaceflight it is hard to keep up.
Luv ly situation to be in. And as the other Doug mentioned, with the internet, the access we have to the data is something I would never have envisioned in my spud and sprouty days...

Good time to be alive.

Craig

A Europa lander isn't out of the question if supplied by an international partner. There is a Russian conference on the topic (in support of a possible Russian-supplied lander) that ended today: http://www.iki.rssi.ru/conf/2009elw/

One thing to remember is that these reports do not represent the final architecture of the missions. The missions will not launch for another 8-10 years, more than twice the normal development time for a mission. There will be refinements and improvements -- and possibly major changes. I know that there are those within the Titan camp, for example, who really want to see the in situ probes launched separately so that the orbiter is already in place at Titan before they arrive.

In any case, we should know today or within a few days the decision -- if the decision isn't kicked to the scientific advisory boards (which has been stated as an option if there isn't a technical or budgetary reason to pick one over the other and it comes down to a purely scientific selection).

Oh, you betcha! If I occasionally sound melancholy or morose over the fact that some planned missions will come too late for me, please forgive me -- I am far and away happier having lived through the early years of space exploration than I would be having to just read about our initial lunar and planetary explorations in books.

As for which of the upcoming outer planet flagship missions comes first, I guess I'm not all that picky. I tend a little more towards the Titan lander concepts, simply because I enjoy seeing an alien planet/moon from its surface, and the current Jupiter mission proposals don't include any landers. But a really good Jupiter orbiter, concentrating on the moons, would provide a lot of grist for my sense-of-wonder mill, too. I'll be happy to see either of them.

-the other Doug

In terms of filling the gap, there may not be a horrid gap...I mean, if Cassini keeps going and NH and Juno are successful, this might be quite a good decade. Also, Dawn will reach Ceres, which one could argue is a transitional world between the terrestrial planets and the icy worlds (even though it is a small one).

And plugging the gap further we could mention Dawn also arriving at Ceres (and earlier Vesta).

It was quite disappointing to me as a child when I realised that really, everywhere on Earth's been explored already. How dull life will be for our unfortunate descendants, once solar system exploration's finished!

Another positive for the next few years, I think, is that the more recent spacefaring nations may attempt increasingly ambitious UMSF goals, beyond the earth/moon. They won't all succeed of course, but some will, and will produce great results. I think there's also a good possibility that the open data release model pioneered by MER, Cassini, Phoenix et al will become the norm.

I'm reading "Unmasking Europa" at the moment; I'd forgotten how amazing the Galileo results were, even trickling down a 33.6k dial-up connection. But then I've also been seduced by the amazing stuff going on here on the Titan threads. I'm going to be happy, whatever the decision.

I also am saddened by the ever widening gab between the launch of Cassini in 1997 and the next flagship. I was born just after Sputnik, and this next one may be the last flagship results that I get to see.

On a much more positive note, keep in mind that Flagships are not the only game in (the outer planets part of ) town. Juno and New Horizons are both New Frontiers missions.

Proposed missions like Argo (Neptune, Kuiper Belt flybys) and Io Volcanic Observer are quite feasable for a sub billion dollar budget. I'm very hopeful that we will see a few more of the New Frontiers and Discovery missions aimed at the outer planets in the next two decades.

And finally the other space faring nations are starting their own planetary missions. We almost have a flotilla of lunar orbiters at the moment, none of them launched by the US, Russia, or ESA. Japan is working on a Venus Orbiter, and a Mercury Orbiter. India is expressing interest in Mars. China has a tag-along orbiter as part of the Phobos-Grunt mission.

Times are a changing, and not all the news is bad.

Mariner9 you have voiced my thoughts precisely there. Whatever happens now the 'losers' will have many options to consider besides standing patiently in line in the NASA flagship queue.

Long live impatience!

Problem is that a lander would probably need a radioisotope power supply (RPS), and a Russian built RPS couldn't be sent on a US launcher without a very expensive process to get the Russian RPS certified (which it might not pass). So the Russians would have to go it alone with their own rocket and cruise stage to get to Europa... but that would involve them building (and paying for) something more complex and expensive than JEO (because they'd have to do all of the DV of JEO plus 1.5 km/s more to land).

Maybe they could do a solar powered lander... but those would have to be mighty big arrays, that would have to be rad hard... and would have to survive the g-loads of the descent and landing.

This has me thinking that a Russian supplied lander is not credible. If there is to be a lander, the US will have to build it and pay for it with maybe the Russians contributing part of it. And in that case, I think the money the US would spend on a lander would be better spent on a small Titan mission (maybe just a balloon or just a lander).

My guess is that the lander is battery powered, but I don't know.

I do vaguely remember that the Russians might be thinking of launching their own carrier craft to take the lander to Europa. They certainly have the launch capability. The only technology I don't know about is radiation hardened electronics.

I'm hoping that the presentations from the conference will be posted.

The studies I've seen, e.g. that from Tibor Balint (~2004) on the proposed Europa Lander (the ESSP) there was a feasible battery powered mission, giving it a life of approximately 3 days on the surface. I can't remember whether it was Li-ion rechargeable from the carrier spacecraft RPS before landing, or a primary cell (Li FeS, Li Ag V, Li Thionyl Chloride etc.) May or may not have had RHUs. I imagine such battery technology would be available to IKI - the end of the JEO study report does mention a meeting with IKI on a potential lander element, which is cheering.

More recent study here quotes 600-820Kg mass required for a soft-lander, c.f. previous 300-500Kg (http://ippw.jpl.nasa.gov/20070607_doc/4_15RAGE.pdf), maybe if everything else came in under the mass budget, and an upgrade to Delta IV-H from the Atlas 551. It just seems such a crucial and rare opportunity, if the JEO does get up (obviously far from certain!)

Anyway, I know Europa landing topic has been discussed to exhaustion, apologies.

Roly

On my blog, I've taken a further look at the Io science plans for JEO, based on looking at the Jupiter Europa Orbiter Final Report. I also looked at what the Ice Penetrating Radar could find during the two planned close flybys of Io.

http://gishbar.blogspot.com/2009/02/io-sci...-part-deux.html
http://gishbar.blogspot.com/2009/02/using-...adar-at-io.html

Well, I take back what I said. 3 days on batteries is pretty exciting. And I think the Russians could supply a battery powered lander... and I think an 800 kg lander should definitely be possible (TSSM gets ~800 kg of in situ payload all the way to Saturn)

They told us at the meeting (I just got back from Moscow) that the presentations would be posted
(although authors had option to sanitize the posted versions if needed).

IIRC the Lavotchkin talk suggested a Proton launch with Briz upper stage and a electric propulsion.
Lander and orbiter would use (Russian) RTGs, although there were few details offered on those
Hardware would be derived from Phobos-Grunt and Luna-Resurs missions (seems quite a logical path -
Resurs lunar lander wouldnt be too dissimilar propulsively from Europa) They'd use lots of shielding.
The trajectory described was 2017 launch, JOI 2022 then tour to pump down - Europa landing
March 2024. But that is just an existence proof to scope propulsion demands - may or may not be
a programmatically realistic schedule.

Ralph, thanks for the details on the Russian Europa lander. *IF* the Europan orbiter mission is selected, then I would not be surprised to see several nations send missions to the Jovian system. Already, four space agencies are considering missions: NASA's Europa Jupiter orbiter, ESA's Ganymede Jupiter orbiter, Russia's Europa lander, and JAXA's magnetosphere orbiter. By the 2020's, Jupiter will be in reach (at least if the craft stay out of the worst of the radiation belts) of a number of space agencies (remember that solar panels are a viable power source at Jupiter for many missions).

At this point, we are in a waiting game to hear the selected target. Either way, a fantastic proposal will be accepted and a fantastic proposal will be rejected.