Europa Lander Study

Which sets of technologies would provide the best science return at various budget levels?

The intriguing possibility that life-supporting conditions could exist in the ice-covered oceans of Europa makes that Jovian moon a significant priority in NASA's exploration of the solar system.

A mission to Europa to search for life would involve launching from Earth, cruising to Jupiter, achieving Europa orbit, site reconnaissance and selection, landing, deep penetration through ice, small autonomous submersibles navigating within the purported sea beneath the ice, and in-situ life detection.

Many advanced technologies not currently available would be required, including long-duration survivable systems (power, thermal, radiation), minimal-mass autonomous systems (systems-on-a-chip, autonomous safe precision landing), life detection (including preventing contamination of Europa by Earth organisms), and communication of science data from within the ocean to the ice surface, to the orbiter, and then to Earth.

We evaluated candidate technologies according to their risk, R&D costs, and probable science return, and used a decision tree methodology to rank them. The results appear in the table below, with the technologies that offer the most value per dollar listed at the top.