Will aerocapture work for a Jupiter orbiter/moon lander? Options

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

This is something interesting. But knowing the harsh radiation environment of the giant, I don't know whether it could be used at all. I suppose that a plunge into the atmosphere then achieving a trajectory which leads to a direct encounter with a moon could be used for a lander... Or for a long-living orbiter.

[mimile]

I don't think the proposed method (a spacecraft aerobraking in Jupiter's top atmosphere then going back to Europa, and arriving with a velocity parallel to Europa's) will work in practice.

I find that the the relative velocity spacecraft wrt Europa would be 4.3 km/s in the best case. This is too much for usual chemical propulsion to slow it down to land.

All studies performed with numerous flybys of Ganymede and/or Callisto to bring the spacecraft to Europa result in a relative velocity that is manageable.

Good ideaa, though !