Wednesday, January 6, 2016

European Contribution to NASA's Europa Mission

Spaceflight Now has an article on the interest of European Space Agency managers of making a major contribution to NASA's Europa mission.  What the article lacks is a statement of whether or not there is sufficient mass margin in the mission to carry both the newly mandated NASA Europa lander and a European contribution.  It's possible that NASA doesn't yet know since it has been examining the lander concept, at the request of Congress, for only a few months.  

If NASA concludes that there is mass for a European contribution, teams of scientists can propose concepts for the next ESA medium class mission selection.  The competition will be tough with with other teams likely to propose a number of other compelling astrophysics and planetary mission concepts.

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