[X] My Assistant

[nprev]

The spacecraft has entered its preliminary design review phase, so I think it's time to begin discussion of what promises to be a fascinating journey to one of the most interesting destinations in the Solar System. Dr. Robert Pappalardo, the mission's chief scientist, delivered an overview of Europa as well as a top-level description of instrumentation and objectives during a talk tonight at the Griffith Observatory as part of their monthly "All Space Considered" series, so that serves as a good starting point. His presentation starts at 29:35.

As a reminder, please carefully review rule 1.3 before commenting. In fact, please review all of them. Thanks!


Europa Clipper Presentation (29:35)

[Explorer1]

A potentially serious issue with some of the rad hardened transistors

Blog post from NASA here; it appears there will be a report later this month.

The main consolation is that the best people in the world are working on this, and the spacecraft we already have at Jupiter seems to be degrading much more slowly than was predicted. I will be eager to see what sort of fix, if any, is needed, or modifying the flight plan....

[mcaplinger]

the spacecraft we already have at Jupiter seems to be degrading much more slowly than was predicted...

I wouldn't draw a lot of conclusions from the Juno experience, since the radiation environment Clipper sees is modeled to be a lot worse.