From Newsgroup: sci.space.news


http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6737

NASA Receives Science Report on Europa Lander Concept
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 8, 2017

A report on the potential science value of a lander on the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa has been delivered to NASA, and the agency is
now engaging the broader science community to open a discussion about
its findings.

In early 2016, in response to a congressional directive, NASA's Planetary Science Division began a pre-Phase A study to assess the science value
and engineering design of a future Europa lander mission. NASA routinely conducts such studies -- known as Science Definition Team (SDT) reports
-- long before the beginning of any mission to gain an understanding of
the challenges, feasibility and science value of the potential mission.
In June 2016, NASA convened a 21-member team of scientists for the SDT.
Since then, the team has deliberated to define a workable and worthy set
of science objectives and measurements for the mission concept, submitting
a report to NASA on Feb. 7.

The report lists three science goals for the mission. The primary goal
is to search for evidence of life on Europa. The other goals are to assess
the habitability of Europa by directly analyzing material from the surface, and to characterize the surface and subsurface to support future robotic exploration of Europa and its ocean. The report also describes some of
the notional instruments that could be expected to perform measurements
in support of these goals.

Scientists agree that the evidence is quite strong that Europa, which
is slightly smaller than Earth's moon, has a global saltwater ocean beneath its icy crust. This ocean has at least twice as much water as Earth's
oceans. While recent discoveries have shown that many bodies in the solar system either have subsurface oceans now, or may have in the past, Europa
is one of only two places where the ocean is understood to be in contact
with a rocky seafloor (the other being Saturn's moon Enceladus). This
rare circumstance makes Europa one of the highest priority targets in
the search for present-day life beyond Earth.

The SDT was tasked with developing a life-detection strategy, a first
for a NASA mission since the Mars Viking mission era more than four decades ago. The report makes recommendations on the number and type of science instruments that would be required to confirm if signs of life are present
in samples collected from the icy moon's surface.

The team also worked closely with engineers to design a system capable
of landing on a surface about which very little is known. Given that Europa has no atmosphere, the team developed a concept that could deliver its
science payload to the icy surface without the benefit of technologies
like a heat shield or parachutes.

The concept lander is separate from the solar-powered Europa multiple
flyby mission, now in development for launch in the early 2020s. The spacecraft

will arrive at Jupiter after a multi-year journey, orbiting the gas giant every two weeks for a series of 45 close flybys of Europa. The multiple
flyby mission will investigate Europa's habitability by mapping its composition,
determining the characteristics of the ocean and ice shell, and increasing
our understanding of its geology. The mission also will lay the foundation
for a future landing by performing detailed reconnaissance using its powerful cameras.

NASA has announced two upcoming town hall meetings to discuss the Science Definition Team report and receive feedback from the science community.
The first will be on March 19, in conjunction with the 2017 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) at The Woodlands, Texas. The second
event will be on April 23 at the Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon)
in Mesa, Arizona.

Read the complete report, "Europa Lander Study 2016 Report" at:

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/europa/technical.cfm

News Media Contact
Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

Preston Dyches
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-7013
preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

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