Instrument Technology Development in Support of the Europa Clipper Mission Concept

James L. Green, Director, Planetary Science Division, NASA HQ

Congress recently passed a FY13 budget for NASA that includes funding to continue pre-formulation and formulation activities for a Europa mission. As part of this effort NASA plans to release an amendment to ROSES 2013 describing a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) for instrument technology development in support of the Europa Clipper mission concept. The goal of this call is to mature and reduce the technical risk of instruments for the Europa Clipper mission to the point where they may be proposed in response to a possible future announcement of flight opportunity without additional extensive technology development. Awarding the funds before the end of FY13 will require an extremely aggressive schedule. To that end, NASA plans to release the NRA no later than April 30; proposals will be due 45 days after the release of the NRA.

The Europa Clipper strawman payload includes an Ice Penetrating Radar (IPR), a Shortwave Infrared Spectrometer (SWIRS), a Topographic Imager (TI), a mass spectrometer (MS), and a magnetometer. The IPR, SWIRS, TI, and MS have been identified as needing significant early development to enable them to operate in the Europan environment, and NASA Plans to target those instruments with this funding opportunity. While other instruments may be proposed, selection preference will be given to proposed instruments in these four categories. US proposers to the recent JUICE AO are especially encouraged to consider proposing to ICEE if their JUICE instrument concepts are applicable to the Europa Clipper mission.