JUICE, ESA's L-class mission to the Jovian system Options

[machi]

Yellow book is available (13.1.2012) - JUICE.

[MarcF]

I remember, back in 2007 I first posted here about a possible ESA/NASA collaboration to send several probes to explore further the Jovian system. At that time the project was called Laplace.
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=4637
Most of reactions were pessimistic (if not sarcastic).
A lot happened since and there were many changes, but finally JUICE is on its way to the Jovian system and Europa Clipper will follow soon.
These will be 2 amazing missions.

[rlorenz]

I remember, back in 2007 I first posted here about a possible ESA/NASA collaboration to send several probes to explore further the Jovian system. At that time the project was called Laplace.
A lot happened since and there were many changes, but finally JUICE is on its way to the Jovian system and Europa Clipper will follow soon.

Indeed. There were NASA-funded ($1M each, IIRC) Flagship studies in 2007, one to Europa, one to Ganymede/Jovian System that were in parallel with (and actually had more technical analysis than) the Laplace concept (just a community response to an ESA call for ideas). At the same time, there was an ESA idea called TandEM and NASA Flagship studies for Titan, and for Enceladus - I served as project scientist and Science Definition Team chair for the Titan one : we came up with a single-launch lander + balloon + aerocapture concept.

In 2008, these studies were consolidated into a next joint study phase - Europa Jupiter system Mission (EJSM), and Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM). NASA directed that TSSM must do both Titan and Enceladus, could not use aerocapture (negating a major advantage of Titan as a target), and that ESA would supply the sexy bits - lake lander and balloon. Unsurprisingly, although a credible mission design emerged, NASA elected to pursue the Europa mission (which eventually, via much convolution, became Clipper) to complement ESA's JUICE mission. (The 2013 Decadal Survey had a Ganymede New Frontiers mission, but basically said 'its a great mission, but ESA will probably do it...)

After a hopeful digression to explore a low-cost Discovery concept (the Titan Mare Explorer in 2012, thwarted by a stalled NASA radioisotope Stirling generator development, leaving NASA no choice but to select InSight instead) Titan was left out in the cold for the 20-teens.

But then in 2016, when NASA added Titan/Enceladus to the New Frontiers target list, Dragonfly was conceived, and was able to draw on the combined objectives that had been defined for a Titan lander and a Titan balloon back in 2007......

It's funny how things turn out.