BUSAN, South Korea – The head of NASA’s science directorate says she remains optimistic that the Europa Clipper mission will launch on schedule in October, despite concerns about the spacecraft’s electronics and launch vehicle.
The $5 billion mission is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy during a three-week window that opens on October 10. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter in 2030 and make dozens of close approaches to Europa, an icy moon that has a potentially habitable subsurface ocean.
NASA announced on July 11 that the mission was studying transistors on the spacecraft that may not have the level of radiation tolerance required for the mission, based on experience with similar components used elsewhere. Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field creates high doses of radiation in the form of charged particles for spacecraft in its vicinity, including Europa.
“Test data obtained so far indicate that some transistors are likely to fail in the high-radiation environment near Jupiter and its moon Europa because the parts are not as resistant to radiation as expected,” the agency said. “The team is working to determine how sensitive the transistors can be and how they will perform in flight. NASA is evaluating options for maximizing the lifetime of transistors in the Jupiter system.”
NASA did not disclose details on the options it was considering, other than a preliminary analysis that would be completed by the end of July. Those options, industry sources said, could include replacing the transistors, meaning the mission would miss the October launch window.
An additional complication comes from the anomaly in a Falcon 9 launch late on July 11, where the vehicle’s upper stage engine malfunctioned, putting the Starlink satellites’ rocket payload into too low an orbit for the spacecraft to survive. SpaceX has grounded the rocket while it investigates the failure, which also affects the Falcon Heavy with a similar upper stage.
Despite these challenges, Nicky Fox, NASA’s science administrator, said she remains optimistic about the mission’s prospects for launching on schedule. “We will continue to charge towards launch as long as we can, look at all the options and make a decision,” she said in an interview after a talk at the Committee on Outer Space Research (COSPAR) 45.th Scientific Assembly here on July 16.
She added that there is no shorter deadline than the launch period itself to decide to proceed with the launch. “We’re going to keep marching toward that October 10 launch window and at some point that decision will be made for us.”
“I’m ever hopeful,” she said. “The team is working so hard and they are very motivated.”
Sample return status in March
During her speech at the COSPAR meeting, Fox also addressed the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program. NASA announced in April that it would seek new options to carry out the mission in an effort to reduce its cost and schedule, and awarded study contracts to seven companies in June to look at alternatives, along with efforts by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Applied Physics Laboratory and a group of NASA centers.
“We have adapted. We realized that we have a challenge,” she told MSR. It argued that it was limited to the “middle third” of the overall effort, which involves taking samples collected by the Perseverance rover and launching them into Mars orbit, where the Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) built in Europe will collect them and take them back. on Earth.
“They’re already a third of the way through the mission,” she said, referring to the samples already collected by Perseverance. “We’ve done a great part of the mission and we’ve done a very challenging part of the mission.”
The final third of the mission, the return of samples to Earth, “is already planned,” she added. ESA is moving forward with ERO development, announcing on July 5 that the spacecraft has completed its critical design review.
“Getting that second third is what we’re all focusing on,” Fox said. “I really welcome the challenge.”
“We are seeing innovation. We are looking at thinking outside the box,” she added. “We’re also looking deep inside the box: is there something simple we’ve missed?”
Neither NASA nor the organizations selected for the design studies have revealed many details about their plans, although some appear to focus on the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), the rocket that will launch the sample box into orbit around Mars.
In a separate presentation at COSPAR on July 15, Laurie Leshin, director of JPL, said her lab is looking at ways to adapt the skycrane landing system demonstrated on the Curiosity and Perseverance rover missions for the MSR. Doing so, she said, requires reducing the mass of the sampler and the MAV it carries, but if that’s possible, she argued, it could significantly reduce the cost and complexity of the mission.