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Neat, thanks for the info! Do you know anything about the possibilities of an orbiter or lander on Europa given the radiation hazards?
by ufmace 9y ago
Neat, thanks for the info! Do you know anything about the possibilities of an orbiter or lander on Europa given the radiation hazards?
- mturmon 9y agoThe current nominal trajectory is on pages 6/7 of the first PDF I linked. It appears to be making ~40 near overpasses of the moon in the prime mission, some within 25-50 km of the surface (red lines), which is really quite remarkable considering the distance from Earth, light-time delays, and complexity of the Jovian system. I would conjecture that our gravimetric/orbital model of the Jovian system will be updated during initial orbits so that planning for the overpasses will be refined after arrival. There has been discussion of putting a (hard) lander on the spacecraft, to drop into one of the plumes. Last I heard, there was Congressional interest in the idea, but for technical reasons, AFAIK, it is out-of-scope for Europa Clipper. I think it's in study for a successor mission. It's generally better to not try to do everything with one mission, but to plan a campaign with various contingencies.