The First Europa Lander, What can be done first, cheapest & best? |
The First Europa Lander, What can be done first, cheapest & best? |
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![]() Merciless Robot ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 ![]() |
I think that many people in this forum would agree that somebody's going to have to land on Europa someday before the rather elaborate schemes to penetrate the outer ice layer will ever fly, if for no other reason than to get some relevant ground truth before committing to such an elaborate, expensive, and risky mission.
EO seems to have ruled out any surface science package for that mission (though it would be nice to change their minds! ![]() 1. A sonar transducer/receiver set embedded within a penetrometer to determine crust density and examine the uniformity of the ice layer within the operational radius of the instrument (looking for cracks and holes, in other words). 2. A conductivity sensor again embedded inside a penetrometer to measure the native salinity of the surrounding material and possibly derive some constraints on the composition of metallic salts in the European crust (saltiness has a major effect on ice properties, in addition to the obvious need to derive the salt content of any underlying ocean). 3. A seismometer for all sorts of reasons. How does this sound? Any critiques, additions, or subtractions? I omitted a surface imager not only because of bandwidth/extra complexity considerations but also because it seems desirable to penetrate the crust in order to minimize as much as possible reading any contaminants from Io during surface measurements. The orbiter data could be used to sense and subtract this from the penetrometer readings. -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 ![]() |
as Bruce points out.. hit the surface slightly off dead-on, and you're screwed.. and slightly off is very damn little, I think. NOT trivial.
Regarding the lunar polar ice. I think the best evidence is fairly clear. Despite the weak claims of a signal of ice in bistatic-radar data using the prospector or clemantine (forget which) data, earthbased radar reveals no trace of depolarized backscattered signals from low attenuation, thick ice deposits in the lunar cold-traps. They see it on Mercury's polar ice, the martian poles, and icy galillean satellites. Not the Moon. This agrees with (I dont' remember who's) model for lunar volatile sources and sinks, combined with models for loss mechanisms from polar ices, including radiation sputtering, UV photodissociation (interplanetary and interstellar Lyman Alpha), impact gardening etc. The conclusion was that the most plausible model had many percent but not tens of percent ice mixed with regolith in the polar cold traps to depths of meters or more. This would be rather hard to spot optically, except maybe by scanning with infrared lasers, one in a strong ice absorption band, the other just outside the band. A real resource, but not one you'd want to squander as hydrogen for rocket fuel, etc., except on the shortest term. |
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#3
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2488 Joined: 17-April 05 From: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Member No.: 239 ![]() |
There are *natural* penetrators as well as man-made ones. All we do, is look for a nice fresh impact, fissure, mini tiger-stripe or whatever, and land there. Turn a few ice boulders over, and there's your reasonably deep, reasonably fresh sample.
An orbiter with *good* imaging would be required, plus a smallish lander (perhaps attached to the orbiter, or not - the orbital dynamics might make it cheaper to have survey orbits/descent profiles which are best served by two vehicles). Bob Shaw -------------------- Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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