NASA Europa Missions, projects and proposals for the 2020s |
NASA Europa Missions, projects and proposals for the 2020s |
Mar 5 2014, 12:53 AM
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Forum Contributor Group: Members Posts: 1374 Joined: 8-February 04 From: North East Florida, USA. Member No.: 11 |
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Mar 17 2017, 04:57 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2106 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
There's not much news here in terms of the lander component anyway, since there's always negotiation before any proposed budget actually passes. The Planetary Society has a good overview. In the meantime, we can discuss other details...
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Mar 18 2017, 04:06 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
There's not much news here in terms of the lander component anyway, since there's always negotiation before any proposed budget actually passes. Agreed. The last launch for a Jupiter+Europa mission, Galileo, was in 1989 so I'm not too concerned about a shakeup in plans for the mission after the next one. One might say that planning now for a Europa mission could even be premature when we don't know what EMM will find. We've seen portions of Europa's surface at respectably high resolution, but it's not out of the question that a thorough reconnaissance will identify landing sites that require different engineering and science specs than anything we know of now. Moreover, the tentative identification of time-varying geyser activity really broadens the possibilities for what the next step at Europa might be. In accessing aqueous materials that have recently been in contact with the ocean and/or lens melt lakes, there are potentially several very different targets: 1) A surface location where liquid water from below has recently risen and frozen. 2) A surface location where geyser outflow is falling in the current time frame. 3) A geyser fly-through and sample return. Moreover, there's some potential synergy here with Enceladus exploration. It's a bit sad that the delays between missions are significant fractions of a human lifetime, but it's important that the second mission is planned better rather than sooner. |
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