NASA IG has Concerns About the Europa Missions

Despite early-stage robust funding, NASA is facing serious management and schedule challenges in its ambitious Europa Clipper program that will send an orbiter and lander to Jupiter’s ice covered moon beginning in 2023.

“Specifically, NASA’s aggressive development schedule, a stringent conflict of interest process during instrument selection, and an insufficient evaluation of cost and schedule estimates has increased project integration challenges and led the Agency to accept instrument cost proposals subsequently found to be far too optimistic,” the audit found.

“Moreover, Clipper has had to compete with at least four other major JPL-managed projects for critical personnel resources, causing concern that the project may not have a sufficient workforce with the required skills at critical periods in its development cycle,” the report said.

The audit also noted that the Europa program’s biggest backer, John Culberson, no longer chairs the House appropriations subcommittee. The Republican Congressman from Texas was defeated in his reelection bid last year.

link.

Europa Lander Being Redesigned for Lowering Cost

Revised concepts for a proposed Europa lander mission could reduce its mass and cost by simplifying its science requirements and doing away with a dedicated communications relay.

In a presentation at a meeting of the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science of the National Academies March 28, Kevin Hand of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that feedback from a mission concept review for the proposed lander last June led to changes in the design to reduce its cost.

“The technology and science were well received. The marching orders that we got out of that review were to see if we could simplify the architecture to reduce complexity and cost,” he said. While there’s been little discussion of the lander’s cost, Hand said there was a “desire” to reduce its cost to below $3 billion.

The concept for the mission presented at that review involved the launch of the lander on a Space Launch System rocket no earlier than late 2025. The spacecraft would enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030 with a landing on Europa to follow no earlier than December 2031. The battery-powered lander would operate on the surface for at least 20 days, relying on a communications relay spacecraft in orbit to return data to Earth.

Hand said the project team looked at options to do away with the relay spacecraft by giving the lander a larger antenna to enable direct-to-Earth communications. That concept uses a flat-panel antenna 80 centimeters across, versus antenna smaller antennas 30 to 40 centimeters across intended for communications with the relay. One quadrant of that larger antenna has been built and tested at JPL, he said, with “encouraging” results.

Another factor that enables the change in design, he said, is a shift in the science requirements for the lander. A report by a science definition team last year had included, as one of the mission’s priorities, the ability of the lander’s instruments to directly detect any life that might exist in the moon’s icy surface.

link.

Europa Mission may Have Budget Squeeze in FY 2017

While NASA says its support for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa is now aligned with Congress, project officials are preparing for a possible “squeeze” on mission funding in the next fiscal year.

In presentations at an Aug. 11 meeting of NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) in Flagstaff, Arizona, officials involved with what’s widely known as the Europa Clipper mission said they are looking for ways to cut costs in 2017 while keeping the mission on track for a 2022 launch.

“There is this squeeze in FY17 that we have,” said Bob Pappalardo, the mission’s project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said. “We’re asking the instrument teams and various other aspects of the project, given that squeeze, what will it take in the out years to maintain that ’22 launch. We’re actively pursuing that question as we speak.”

Pappalardo didn’t elaborate on the budget details, but the administration’s request for the mission in its 2017 budget proposal, $49.6 million, is far less than the $175 million it received from Congress in 2016. There is uncertainty in Congress as well: a House appropriations bill for fiscal year 2017 offers $260 million for the Europa mission, yet a Senate bill, while “supportive” of the mission, does not explicitly allocate any funds for it. Neither bill has been passed by either chamber.

link.

The Europa Missions and the SLS

Europa, the icy Jovian moon with a subsurface liquid water ocean heated by tidal forces, presents a tremendous opportunity for scientific exploration and offers tantalizing possibilities for the search for extraterrestrial life. Despite the stark warning issued in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two to “attempt no landing there,” NASA has been working on a dedicated mission to Europa, which now involves a lander, for more than three years.

This mission’s profile has undergone considerable evolution since Congress first allocated money in 2013 to finance it, including a policy mandate to utilize the heavy-lift Space Launch System for launch.

link.