Presenter: Samuel Howell (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Description:
Europa is an "Ocean World" and Galilean Satellite of Jupiter about the size of Earth’s moon. It hides away a warm, liquid saltwater ocean ~100 km deep beneath a predominantly water ice shell, potentially 10s km thick. With a launch readiness date of 2024, the spacecraft will travel to Jupiter using a Mars-Earth gravity assist. At the beginning of the next decade, the spacecraft will orbit Jupiter, flying by Europa more than 40 times over ~3.5 years to observe this moon’s ice shell and ocean, study its composition, investigate its geology, and search for and characterize any current activity. Looking across these objectives will allow Clipper to achieve its top-level science goal: Explore Europa to Investigate its Habitability. To address the science requirements of the Europa Clipper mission, a highly capable suite of nine instruments comprise the mission's scientific payload. This payload includes four in situ instruments that measure fields and particles: The Europa Clipper Magnetometer (ECM), the Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS), the SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA), and the MAss Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration (MASPEX). In addition, five remote sensing instruments span the ultraviolet through radio: the Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS), the Europa Imaging System (EIS), the Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE), the Europa Thermal Imaging System (E-THEMIS), and the Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON). Gravity and radio science will be achieved via the telecommunication system, and scientific data could come from the planned radiation monitoring system. Moving toward launch, elements of both the spacecraft and the payload are under construction in preparation for assembly, testing, and launch operations. Through Thematic Working Groups and investigations, the team is preparing a compilation of papers for Space Science Reviews to capture the science and instrumentation of this mission.