The First Europa Lander, What can be done first, cheapest & best? Options

[centsworth_II]

Also, the ice being rock hard, it would take quite an explosive charge to get any depth.
In fact, the ice will be so hard, better make that a heated drill.

[nprev]

Should have posted this earlier, but our friend & fellow forum member vjkane has a very good recent post covering a January Europa hard lander/penetrator conference on his excellent Future Planetary Exploration blog.

[Paolo]

Russia may launch a Fobos-Grunt based Europa lander in 2020-2021

Babelfish translation:

30-08-2009 Russia can send research mission to the satellite of Jupiter - Europe - in 2020-2021
Russia can send research mission to the satellite of Jupiter - Europe - in 2020-2021, transfers [ITAR]- TASS. On this reported at the sixth international aerospace congress the deputy director of the Institute of Space Research of/[IKI]/of the Russian Academy of Sciences Oleg [Korablev]. On Thursday he made a report “landing apparatus to the satellite of Jupiter - Europe”.
[Korablev] reminded one that Europe and the three additional satellites of Jupiter were opened by Galileo by Galileo. Contemporary concepts about Europe were formed after through Jupiter system they flew several American automatic spacecraft. In particular, it is established that in Europe are water of the glacial on the basis of these data they appeared different models of the thickness of ice cover. According to [Korableva], “in all these models general “raisin” - under ice is liquid water, ocean”. According to the estimation Of [korableva], “Europe is the model of the icy peace, where there can be life”.
The representative of IKI reported that the scientific research work on the mission to Europe conducts [NPO] of the name Of [lavochkina] and IKI. “Is assumed that in the composition of mission they will be orbital module and landing apparatus, it refined [Korablev]. - Orbital module will remain in orbit of Europe for relaying of data from the landing apparatus. With the production of these modules will be used the reserves of the previous missions - “Phoebus- ground” and “Moon- resource”. It is assumed that the mass of landing apparatus will be 550 kgf”. [Korablev] noted that the developers of mission were forced to calculate large limitations on the basis of radiation, since powerful radiation belts of Jupiter can negatively influence onboard equipment.
“Scientific research works on the mission to Europe it is planned to complete in 2010, reported [Korablev]. - The tentative date of starting - 2020-2021. Under this mission will be used the carrier rocket “proton”. According to [Korableva], the overflight into the system of Jupiter and the output to Europe will engage seven years. Landing apparatus works on the surface of Europe of 60-90 days.
“By the primary task of mission - the search for the tracks of extraterrestrial life and the study of the structure of Europe, noted [Korablev]. - The flight of Russian mission will be carried out in parallel with the analogous missions of European Space Agency and American agency of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). In the opinion [Korableva], in the case of the success of these missions by the following direction of studies of the distant planets of the solar system, most likely, will become Saturn.

[Hungry4info]

While I love the whole idea of a USA + Russia + ESA invasion of the Jupiter system, I don't expect Russia will actually go ahead with this.

[vjkane]

While I love the whole idea of a USA + Russia + ESA invasion of the Jupiter system, I don't expect Russia will actually go ahead with this.

They would need to be working hard on the radiation tolerant electronics and design techniques now for this schedule. So far as I know, they are not.

[Hungry4info]

They would need to be working hard on the radiation tolerant electronics and design techniques now for this schedule. So far as I know, they are not.

If the Russian lander lands on the anti-Jupiter hemisphere of Europa (the 'far side' of that moon), would that still be a problem?

If so, would some cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos enable that process to be sped up? Surely NASA has experience in such issues from Galileo.

[ynyralmaen]

It'd still be a problem on the anti-Jupiter hemisphere - the energetic charged particles that are the problem are guided by Jupiter's magnetic field, and strike the entire surface of Europa. There are probably variations in particle flux over the surface (and these are probably responsible for some of the colour variations in the surface ices), but the flux is high everywhere; being out of sight of Jupiter doesn't really help.

[vjkane]

It'd still be a problem on the anti-Jupiter hemisphere - the energetic charged particles that are the problem are guided by Jupiter's magnetic field, and strike the entire surface of Europa. There are probably variations in particle flux over the surface (and these are probably responsible for some of the colour variations in the surface ices), but the flux is high everywhere; being out of sight of Jupiter doesn't really help.

My understanding is that the trailing edge of each moon gets the brunt of the energetic particles. The Jovian radiation fields rotate in the same direction as the moons but at a much faster rate. Therefore, the energetic particles are slammed into the trailing hemisphere.

The leading hemisphere, therefore, has a lower radiation environment, but it is still a high radiation environment. If good landing sites could be found on the leading side, that would be good, but you still need a very radiation hardened lander.

[dvandorn]

Here's a thought -- Europa's surface is mostly water ice, right? Ice is an excellent radiation shield, right? And we need to learn how to melt our way down into the ocean below somehow, right?

You could greatly increase the lifetime of a Europa lander if you could effectively bury most of it in ice soon after it lands...

-the other Doug

[Paolo]

Pure science fiction but interesting anyway, a Russian Fobos-Grunt based Europa lander
http://www.iki.rssi.ru/conf/2009elw/presen...artynov_ELW.pdf

[Juramike]

2 years in Jupiter system orbit before lander release.

Is there a chance that that much radiation exposure would be bad for the lander electronics?

[nprev]

No detail on instruments; guess the purpose is to present a method to land 70 kg of instrumentation on the surface. Also no mention of nominal surface mission duration, though the lander appears to be RTG powered.

Re radiation: I wonder how much of the mass budget represents shielding.

[djellison]

Most of Juno's electronics are in a titanium 'safe house' that's about 1 x 1 x 0.8m, and is something like 130kg - JUST for the box - not the electronics inside.

[nprev]

Hmm. Looks like that might mean that the actual science payload would be no more than 20 kg at a WAG; don't have a good sense of scale for this thing.

[helvick]

Titanium seems like an odd choice to me (given it's density) but I assume this is actually some sort of ceramic\alloy construct. I recently discovered (to my surprise) that depleted uranium is one of the most effective and efficient (in terms of mass) x-ray\gamma-ray shielding materials - I can see many reasons for not using it (cost for starters) but I'm wondering whether it's ever been used or considered for radiation protection enclosures on spacecraft.