Europa Clipper Development, Build And Prelaunch Activities |
Europa Clipper Development, Build And Prelaunch Activities |
Aug 20 2019, 04:31 PM
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#16
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 66 Joined: 3-August 12 Member No.: 6454 |
BTW, I remember reading a detailed Europa Clipper mission proposal somewhere, but now I can't find it in my files.
Anybody here remember where it was posted? A quick Google search came up empty. Thnx |
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Aug 21 2019, 02:41 AM
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#17
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Maybe this is the one you were thinking of?
https://smd-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/science-r...S_Sept_2016.pdf One thing that catches my eye is that virtually all of Europa would be mapped at better than 30m per pixel with a median of about 9m per pixel. Due to orbital mechanics that are easy to visualize (flybys just inside or outside of Europa's orbit), there is a rough 180° periodicity in the coverage with the sub-jovian and anti-jovian regions imaged with the best resolution and the leading and trailing regions imaged with the worst resolution. This is approximately 10 times higher resolution than Viking coverage of Mars. |
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Oct 23 2019, 06:23 AM
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#18
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Panel discussion tomorrow (23 Oct 19) about Clipper featuring Bob Pappalardo and TPS CEO Bill Nye, 1030 US Pacific Daylight Time, 1730 GMT. NASA TV link.
-------------------- 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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Apr 22 2021, 08:33 PM
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#19
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2106 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
I didn't want to start a new topic in the book subforum, but I wanted to let everyone know about 'The Mission' by David Brown; a fantastic book about the long history of Europa missions that recently released and everything that led up to the Europa Clipper's development so far. I'm only in chapter 4 of the audio version, but it's filled with all sorts of details on JIMO and previous proposals, as well as the nitty-gritty scientists, bureaucrats, politicians, (as well as some some cameos by posters on this very forum)! I had never known the origin of OPAG and MEPAG, the various rivalries, and the constant competition for scarce dollars.
The author has done quite a bit of science writing on space missions, and the prose is a good mix of details that will interest both experts and amateurs. It really emphasizes the long slog before even the first physical part of a probe destined for space is machined. I think there will be plenty new even to the users of UMSF. |
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Apr 22 2021, 08:53 PM
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#20
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2542 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
I wanted to let everyone know about 'The Mission' by David Brown; a fantastic book about the long history of Europa missions... Since I was on a number of teams for the 3 or 4 precursor missions and on a losing team for Clipper itself, I found that the book omitted all of the interesting details about those competitions (few of which, I expect, will ever be public). Not a surprise, since history is written by the winners... -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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Apr 23 2021, 12:12 AM
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#21
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Richard Greenberg's books about the science of Europa are extremely lively, documenting some passionate disagreements, to put it mildly. I suspect that the rivalries in engineering a Europa mission are mainly about different issues, not necessarily scientific ones, but it seems like there has to be some aspect of the thin-ice vs thick-ice theories coming into play, at least during the ~2002-2014 era. But I am only on the outside looking in.
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May 24 2021, 07:54 PM
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#22
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1669 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
Nice talk by Bob Pappalardo on Europa Clipper was presented on May 12, and can be watched on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZMZuiiaAmQ&t=4s -------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Jul 23 2021, 08:45 PM
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#23
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3242 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
Europa Clipper now has a launch vehicle: a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Launch is now set for October 2024.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awa...clipper-mission -------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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Jul 26 2021, 04:29 AM
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#24
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1592 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
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Jul 26 2021, 05:07 AM
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#25
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
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Jul 27 2021, 12:19 AM
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#26
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2106 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
$178 million is pocket change compared with SLS anyway. Massive savings by any measures (I could say more about SLS, but the p-word would be involved)....
Having a launch vehicle finalized is a big milestone; will be an impressive sight! |
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Feb 13 2022, 11:07 PM
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#27
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Member Group: Members Posts: 251 Joined: 14-January 22 Member No.: 9140 |
This description of the Europa Clipper radar instrument, REASON, has a date of 2015, but seems to remain valid:
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/meetings/aug2.../8_f_REASON.pdf There is good reason to believe that the icy shell will have a fair degree of global consistency for depth and structure, with local exceptions. The radar campaign of Europa Clipper will not map Europa's surface comprehensively, but rather provide a partial grid of widely-separated tracks, with good vertical resolution along those tracks. This should provide excellent coverage of the global parameters for the shell's structure, surface texture, and – if existing conceptions of the shell's depth and REASON's performance hold – thickness. If exceptions to the global trends (eg, pockets of liquid water closer to the surface) are not very rare, then the grid of ground tracks will intersect them, sampling them occasionally. I guess if there's an extended mission, there would be high priority on additional ground tracks to target areas of suspected interest that were missed or grazed during the main mission. The coverage map in the linked paper shows that at least in many locations the coverage will be pretty dense. Amusingly, the ground tracks look quite similar in distribution to the linea features around longitude 225W and elsewhere, so hopefully we don't end up just missing something of interest if the ground tracks remain parallel to geological features for thousands of km, just missing them along the entire length. |
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Sep 22 2023, 09:47 PM
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#28
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1669 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
Live video stream of Europa Clipper assembly:
https://europa.nasa.gov/spacecraft/assembly/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk0X3Sh2gIE -------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Apr 17 2024, 12:22 AM
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#29
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Member Group: Members Posts: 291 Joined: 29-December 05 From: Ottawa, ON Member No.: 624 |
Europa Clipper will be arriving in Jupiter orbit in April 2030. It will take about a year to get it into the science orbit. I can't locate any schematics of the initial orbits, and potential flybys of Ganymede, Calisto, or distant observations of Io. Can anyone assist?
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Apr 17 2024, 12:36 AM
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#30
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2542 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20160008162 is an old paper that describes an earlier tour design. I couldn't find anything more recent that wasn't paywalled.
At one point the claim was made that there would be no science observations made of the other satellites to save costs, but I doubt that will hold once they're flying. -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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