Ocean Moon Diver: Inside First Europa NASA Team Meeting

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10 days before the 3rd Death Anniversary of the “Ultimate Moon Walker” Neil Armstrong NASA communicated that the Team which has set its eye on the more distant moon of Jupiter Europa met for the first time. The Europa Clipper Mission is Green to Go across the board and now in final stages with launch date for 2020. 

On August 10 NASA assured that the Europa Clipper Team that met for the first time is “united by a goal...to investigate whether Jupiter's Moon Europa could harbor life under its icy shell”. 

The Europa Clipper Team is composed of scientists and engineers as well as new generation experts which will drive in new inputs. The Team met in California Pasadena Laboratory of JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

It is “...the beginning of a new chapter that could last as long as two decades,” NASA stated. 

"We have a rare and wonderful opportunity with this mission to investigate whether Europe could be an abode for life," Curt Niebur Europa Mission Program Scientist said at the beginning of the meeting. 

Thought to contain an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface, Europa is considered one of the most promising places in the solar system beyond Earth to search for signs of present-day life.

"We're in the service of our colleagues, our scientific community, our country and our fellow human beings. It's a responsibility we take very seriously," the Team leaders voiced.

The Europa Clipper mission -now past paper and tuning its final details is complexly composed of several aspects. The rocket and launch system, the navigation course to Jupiter and entry into´s Europa orbit and the Europa Clipper technology. 

The initial program which includes flyby missions to orbit the moon of Jupiter stands. The addition of a lander -to perform soft or hard landing on Europa´s surface continues to be debated and is officially not included in the program. While Landers are still being sketched up scientists assure that flyby technology can also deliver the essential data to answer the question whether life forms exist on Europa.  

"There’s an old saying that the clothes make the man. In planetary exploration, the instrument suite makes the mission. Fewer and simpler instruments can enable a lower cost mission but at the cost of restricting the richness of the scientific investigations," Van Kane reported on Planetary Org some time ago referring to the Europa Clipper mission. 

Some ocean experts assure that the a lander is essential to reach “life” answers in the Europa Mission. Due to budget restrictions a lander addition becomes complex. Estimations for a Lander inclusion peaked the budget to over 1 billion USD. Press reported that NASA even asked the European Space Agency ESA to “furnish a lander or ice-penetrator to probe Europa -probe that would be carried by the Europa Clipper. Experts now facing budget realities say that equipping the flyby Europa technology with proper instrumentation is the key if no lander is included and could be as resourceful as any lander. 

The answer to whether can flyby missions serve in the search of life forms in distant oceans is without a doubt, Yes! but it all comes down to what can a flyby orbiter do? The Europa Flyby needs to be able to dive into the Moon and even breach its surface without never leaving its orbit? Is that possible? Yes! NASA has been for decades using satellites navigating in flyby orbits here on Earth to study life cycles and in distant planets to gain essential knowledge.

In the short press release of the first meeting of the Europa Clipper Team in California NASA used the word “instruments” five times. 

Additionally the organization communicated that “the selection of instruments for the mission's scientific payload” has already been announced..

Inside eyes into the first Europa meeting revealed the participation of experts not only in the field of planetary exploration but experts with focus and experience in flyby missions and exploration of icy planets. These include experts from diverse NASA missions such as the recent flyby to Pluto New Horizons Mission, exploration of Europa and NASA's Cassini, Galileo and Voyager missions. 

"...instruments were each selected separately," Robert Pappalardo, Europa project scientist said during the meeting. "But now we want to understand how they can best work together to achieve the overarching goal, which is to investigate the habitability of this icy ocean moon," Pappalardo continued.

"That's why we're here, in one room, at the very start of the project," added Pappalardo. "So we can begin to function as one team, to understand the cross-cutting science issues we all face, and so we can use all of our tools together to understand Europa."

“A complex robotic space probe” and “plans for integrating the recently selected science instruments into the probe's overall architecture” are among the most interesting highlights made by during the meeting behind closed doors.

"The engineering team has already made great progress, and we're in excellent shape for this phase of the mission," Barry Goldstein, Europa project manager at JPL, reported to the team. 

NASA is not alone in the Europa´s Moon Race. The Examiner reported July 26 that ESA the European Space Agency has committed 384 million USD to the Aerospace Firm Airbus Defense and Space to get started on the "JUpiter ICy moons Explorer” or “JUICE” mission. The mission is set for launch just two years after the Europa Clipper on 2022. ESA's JUICE will flyby the icy moons of Jupiter, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede, before settling into orbit around that latter moon for eight months.

“The expedition, along with NASA’s planned Europa Clipper, represents the beginning of a new phase of solar system exploration,” the media reported.

ESA JUICE Team revealed that their considerations for instrumentation include the latest in visual technology, spectrometers, nitrogen and carbon detectors, element detectors, intense sonars, radar capable of ice-penetration, sonic and acoustic instrumentation, radiation technology,  sensors and other instruments. Some are used daily by those who study oceans here on Earth others are more specific for the mission. 

NASA is also going further into the ice-giants with plans revealed by the Astronomy Magazine of sending space probes to Uranus and Neptune. 

In the NASA´s Astrobiology reported of August 20 titled “Pathways for Life’s Origin on the Ocean Floor” the quote “...for the origin of life as we know it...organic compounds need to be formed from inorganic precursors,” echo like key words. 

The study which was supported by the Exobiology & Evolutionary Biology element of the NASA Astrobiology Program, revealed two reaction pathways that transform carbon-containing molecules into forms that life can use. Contrary to previous theories, the two pathways do not need fluids circulating in the environment. Instead, molecules are formed in small spaces in rocks where the fluids are trapped. The paper, “Pathways for abiotic organic synthesis at submarine hydrothermal fields,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS.

While the community reflects on the huge steps and advances made in outerspace ocean exploration and the search of ocean life forms existing in distant planets and moons and while the NASA Europa Team continues its work inspired by their first meeting some still feel nostalgic and the need to open doors and dialogue for the addition of a low-cost Europa Clipper soft lander. Since 2008 NASA has been developing small bots with eyes set on Europa's subsurface ocean exploration, it could be of little surprise that a small space is still reserved in the Clipper for the ROV that could one day break the ice of the ever-calling Europa moon, to give us perhaps another “Ultimate-Moon Walker” a “Moon-Diver”.