Open AccessScience Goals and Mission Architecture of the Europa Lander Mission Concept
Author(s) -
K. P. Hand,
C. B. Phillips,
Alison E. Murray,
J. B. Garvin,
Earl H. Maize,
Roger Gibbs,
G. D. Reeves,
A. Miguel San Martin,
G. Tan-Wang,
Joel Krajewski,
K. Hurst,
Ray Crum,
Kenneth Hurst,
Tim McElrath,
John C. Gallon,
D. Sabahi,
S. W. Thurman,
Barry Goldstein,
Polly Estabrook,
S. W. Lee,
J. Dooley,
W. B. Brinckerhoff,
K. S. Edgett,
Christopher R. German,
Tori M. Hoehler,
Sarah M. Hörst,
Jonathan I. Lunine,
C. Paranicas,
Ken Nealson,
David E. Smith,
Alexis S. Templeton,
Michael J. Russell,
B. E. Schmidt,
Brent C. Christner,
B. L. Ehlmann,
Alexander G. Hayes,
A. R. Rhoden,
Paul Willis,
R. A. Yingst,
Kathleen L. Craft,
M. E. Cameron,
Tom Nordheim,
J. Pitesky,
J. E. C. Scully,
Jason D. Hofgartner,
Steven W. Sell,
Kevin Barltrop,
Jacob Izraelevitz,
Erik J. Brandon,
Jessica Seong,
John-Paul Jones,
Jasmina Pasalic,
Keith J. Billings,
Juan Pablo Pizarro Ruiz,
Ratnakumar V. Bugga,
D. Graham,
L. A. Arenas,
D. Takeyama,
Mark Drummond,
Hrand Aghazarian,
Allen Andersen,
Kayla B. Andersen,
E. W. Anderson,
Alessandra Babuscia,
Paul Backes,
Erik S. Bailey,
Doyle E. Balentine,
Christopher G. Ballard,
D. F. Berisford,
Pradeep Bhandari,
Krys Blackwood,
Gary S. Bolotin,
Emilee Bovre,
Joseph Bowkett,
K. Boykins,
M. S. Bramble,
T. M. Brice,
Paul Briggs,
Alex Brinkman,
Sawyer Brooks,
Brent Buffington,
B. R. A. Burns,
Morgan L. Cable,
Stefano Campagnola,
L. A. Cangahuala,
Gregory Carr,
John R. Casani,
Nacer Chahat,
Brendan Chamberlain-Simon,
Yun-Ting Cheng,
Steve Chien,
Brant Cook,
Mark S. Cooper,
Michael DiNicola,
Bradley J. Clement,
Zachary Dean,
E. A. Cullimore,
Aaron Curtis,
J-P. de la Croix,
Peter Di Pasquale,
Emma Dodd,
L. A. Dubord,
Jeffrey A. Edlund,
Raymond Ellyin,
Blair Emanuel,
J. Foster,
Anthony Ganino,
G. J. Garner,
Mike Gibson,
Matthew Gildner,
Kenneth Glazebrook,
Martin Greco,
W. M. Green,
Sara J. Hatch,
M. M. Hetzel,
William Hoey,
Amy E. Hofmann,
Rodica Ionasescu,
Abhinandan Jain,
Jay Jasper,
Jennie R. Johannesen,
Garrett Johnson,
Insoo Jun,
Anup Katake,
So Young Kim-Castet,
D. I. Kim,
W. Kim,
Emily Klonicki,
Brad Kobeissi,
B. D. Kobie,
J. Kochocki,
M. Kokorowski,
Jacob Kosberg,
Kristopher L. Kriechbaum,
Tejas Kulkarni,
Raymond Lam,
Damon Landau,
Myra Lattimore,
Sharon Laubach,
Christopher R. Lawler,
Grace Lim,
Justin Yifu Lin,
Todd Litwin,
Martin W. Lo,
C. Logan,
E. Maghasoudi,
Lukas Mandrake,
Yuliya Marchetti,
Eloïse Marteau,
Kimberly Maxwell,
J. B. Mc Namee,
O. Mcintyre,
Michael B. Meacham,
Joseph Melko,
Juergen Mueller,
David Muliere,
Ashwin Mysore,
Jeremy Nash,
Hiro Ono,
Jeff Parker,
Rebecca Perkins,
Anastassios E. Petropoulos,
Aaron Gaut,
Mikael Gomez,
Raul Polit Casillas,
Michael Preudhomme,
Guy Pyrzak,
Jacqueline Rapinchuk,
J. M. Ratliff,
T. L. Ray,
Eric Roberts,
Kenneth Roffo,
D. C. Roth,
Joseph Russino,
T. M. Schmidt,
Marcel Schoppers,
Juan Senent,
Fred Serricchio,
Doug Sheldon,
Lori Shiraishi,
J. Shirvanian,
Katherine J.Y. Siegel,
Gurkirpal Singh,
Allen Sirota,
E. David Skulsky,
Joseph S. Stehly,
Nathan Strange,
S. Stevens,
Eric Sunada,
Scott Tepsuporn,
Luis Phillipe Tosi,
Nikolas Trawny,
I. Uchenik,
Vandi Verma,
R. Volpe,
Charles Wagner,
D. Wang,
Reg G. Willson,
John Luke Wolff,
Andre Wong,
Aline Zimmer,
K. G. Sukhatme,
K. A. Bago,
Y. Chen,
Alyssa Deardorff,
R. S. Kuch,
Christopher Lim,
Marguerite Syvertson,
G. Arakaki,
Arturo Avila,
Kevin DeBruin,
Andreas Frick,
Jude Harris,
Matt Heverly,
Jessie Kawata,
S.-K. Kim,
D. Kipp,
Jonathan Murphy,
Matthew W. Smith,
Matthew Spaulding,
Rohan Thakker,
Noah Warner,
Christopher Yahnker,
Margo Young,
Thomas J. Magner,
Danica Adams,
Peter D. Bedini,
Lauren Mehr,
Colin Sheldon,
Steven Ver,
Van Evera Bailey,
Marc A. Briere,
M. H. Butler,
A. K. Davis,
Susan L. Ensor,
Michele Gan,
Amanda Haapala-Chalk,
Theodore J. Hartka,
Mark E. Holdridge,
Albert Hong,
J.W. Hunt,
J. Iskow,
F. Kahler,
Kate Murray,
David Napolillo,
Michael Norkus,
Richard N. Pfisterer,
John N. Porter,
D. C. Roth,
P. Schwartz,
Lawrence Wolfarth,
Eric H. Cardiff,
A. K. Davis,
Eric Grob,
Junka Adam,
Erin M. Betts,
J. Norwood,
Melissa Heller,
Tyler Voskuilen,
Phil Sakievich,
Leven B. Gray,
D. Hansen,
Kevin Irick,
John C. Hewson,
Joshua Lamb,
Shawn Stacy,
Christopher M. Brotherton,
Alexander S. Tappan,
D. Benally,
H. Thigpen,
Estefan Ortiz,
Diego Sandoval,
Aaron M. Ison,
Maria Warren,
P. G. Stromberg,
Paul Thelen,
B. Blasy,
Prabal Nandy,
Abigail Haddad,
L. B. Trujillo,
T. H. Wiseley,
Sally Bell,
N. P. Teske,
C Post,
Loraine Torres-Castro,
Christopher Grosso,
Maryla Wasiolek
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
the planetary science journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2632-3338
DOI - 10.3847/psj/ac4493
Subject(s) - astrobiology , architecture , schedule , engineering , systems engineering , computer science , earth science , aerospace engineering , geology , geography , physics , archaeology , operating system
Europa is a premier target for advancing both planetary science and astrobiology, as well as for opening a new window into the burgeoning field of comparative oceanography. The potentially habitable subsurface ocean of Europa may harbor life, and the globally young and comparatively thin ice shell of Europa may contain biosignatures that are readily accessible to a surface lander. Europa’s icy shell also offers the opportunity to study tectonics and geologic cycles across a range of mechanisms and compositions. Here we detail the goals and mission architecture of the Europa Lander mission concept, as developed from 2015 through 2020. The science was developed by the 2016 Europa Lander Science Definition Team (SDT), and the mission architecture was developed by the preproject engineering team, in close collaboration with the SDT. In 2017 and 2018, the mission concept passed its mission concept review and delta-mission concept review, respectively. Since that time, the preproject has been advancing the technologies, and developing the hardware and software, needed to retire risks associated with technology, science, cost, and schedule.