Jupiter flagship selected Options

[john_s]

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/fea...s/20090218.html

[mps]

Am I the only one here who preferred EJSM? TSSM is surely a great mission concept too, it was just my 2nd choice

[Stephen]

Am I the only one here who preferred EJSM? TSSM is surely a great mission concept too, it was just my 2nd choice

I preferred EJSM (although I also sort of wished they could have picked both so we didn't have to wait until 2030+--or 2040+ more likely--before NASA returns to Titan :-( ). By 2026 NASA will be way overdue for getting back to Europa.

As Jason Perry's page points out , though, and others here have alluded to, though "JEO is safe", "despite this downselection, the contest isn't over for JGO" back at the ESA. So let's not bring out the champagne and dancing girls just yet. Save those for when JGO gets the final go-ahead.

======
Stephen

[EccentricAnomaly]

As Jason Perry's page points out , though, and others here have alluded to, though "JEO is safe", "despite this downselection, the contest isn't over for JGO" back at the ESA. So let's not bring out the champagne and dancing girls just yet. Save those for when JGO gets the final go-ahead.

Although we should be very happy about returning to Jupiter, we shouldn't be complacent on JEO. With a 2020 launch a lot can happen. I think we all need to get strongly and vocally behind JEO, or else we may loose yet another outer planet mission.

We had an outer planet flagship launch in the 70s, 80, and 90s... and none in the 00s, and we'll have none in the 10s. Now they're making us wait until the 20s for one. I don't think we'd be out of line to demand that they send two in the 20s. Especially given the extremely high degree of commonality in the designs.... heck, most of engineering team was shared between both studies.... why can't engineering teams be shared in phase A/B too?

EJSM and TSSM both return a huge science bang for the buck... I doubt NASA has many other options for such a large return on investment. Especially if looking for life is a focus, nothing else is even in the same league. These two missions should be a top priority for NASA.

Let's do a MER to the outer solar system! Spirit and Opportunity on performance enhancing drugs. :-)

[vjkane]

We had an outer planet flagship launch in the 70s, 80, and 90s... and none in the 00s, and we'll have none in the 10s. Now they're making us wait until the 20s for one. I don't think we'd be out of line to demand that they send two in the 20s. Especially given the extremely high degree of commonality in the designs.... heck, most of engineering team was shared between both studies.... why can't engineering teams be shared in phase A/B too?

Assuming that the current levels of funding (adjusted for inflation which hasn't happened in recent years) continues, there is probably money for one flagship mission in the 2020s. In the 1990s, we had Cassini, in the 2000s, we have the development of MSL, in the 2010s JEO. A Titan Flagship return would be in competition with a Mars Flagship mission (either another big rover or deep drill or sample return) and a Venus Flagship mission (which will be proposed in the next month for the 2020s).

I think that if you really want a Titan return to fly in the 2020s, the best bet is to figure out how to do one for a bit over $1B. The billion dollar box studies said it couldn't be done for less than $1.5B-2B. If that is true, then there is a harsh competition between excellent Flagship missions for the 2020s. If someone could figure out how to return to Titan for half the price of a Flagship, I see some hope.