page_title: Europa Orbiter
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Europa Orbiter / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Original caption released with image: The puzzling, fascinating surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view, made from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. This is the color view of Europa from Galileo that shows the largest portion of the moon's surface at the highest resolution. The view was previously released as a mosaic with lower resolution and strongly enhanced color (see PIA02590). To create this new version, the images were assembled into a realistic color view of the surface that approximates how Europa would appear to the human eye. The scene shows the stunning diversity of Europa's surface geology. Long, linear cracks and ridges crisscross the surface, interrupted by regions of disrupted terrain where the surface ice crust has been broken up and re-frozen into new patterns. Color variations across the surface are associated with differences in geologic feature type and location. For example, areas that appear blue or white contain relatively pure water ice, while reddish and brownish areas include non-ice components in higher concentrations. The polar regions, visible at the left and right of this view, are noticeably bluer than the more equatorial latitudes, which look more white. This color variation is thought to be due to differences in ice grain size in the two locations. Images taken through near-infrared, green and violet filters have been combined to produce this view. The images have been corrected for light scattered outside of the image, to provide a color correction that is calibrated by wavelength. Gaps in the images have been filled with simulated color based on the color of nearby surface areas with similar terrain types. This global color view consists of images acquired by the Galileo Solid-State Imaging (SSI) experiment on the spacecraft's first and fourteenth orbits through the Jupiter system, in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Image scale is 2 miles (1.6 kilometers) per pixel. North on Europa is at right. The Galileo mission was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Additional information about Galileo and its discoveries is available on the Galileo mission home page at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. More information about Europa is available at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/europa.
context_page_description: The Europa Orbiter was a planned NASA mission to Jupiter's Moon Europa, that was cancelled in 2002. Its main objectives included determining the presence or absence of a subsurface ocean and identifying candidate sites for future lander missions. Europa Orbiter received pre-project funding in 1998, and resulted from NASA's Fire and Ice project.
context_section_description: Europa Orbiter was a design for a mission to the Jovian moon Europa, based on a 900 kg (1984 lb) orbiter, of which 500 kg (1102 lb) was fuel for maneuvers. It would have been powered by RTG power and 2003 launch from the Space Shuttle. This would have meant an arrival at Jupiter in 2007, at which time it would commence in three-part science tour focused on Europa. The spacecraft would be radiation hardened to survive a predicted 4 megarads of radiation.
  The science payload would include a radar to determine the thickness of ice at Europa, and determine what was below it. Other instruments would be an altimeter and imaging systems, among other devices.
  In 1999, NASA issued an announcement of opportunity that solicited experiments for Europa Orbiter, Pluto/Kuiper Express, and Solar Probe.
  The results of the studies on the Europa Orbiter have been conducive to the Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO), NASA's contribution to the planned international Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM) that was slated for launch in 2020. EJSM was cancelled in 2011.
  The Europa Orbiter-concept should not be confused with the Jovian Europa Orbiter, a feasibility study conducted by the European Space Agency which was finally superseded by the EJSM, too.
  Another Europa mission in this era was the Europa Ice Clipper, a Stardust mission-like sample return mission.
  The next NASA mission to Jupiter was Juno, which was selected in 2005 as the next New Frontiers mission after New Horizons. It was launched in 2011 and arrived at Jupiter in the summer of 2016.
  A 2002 paper noted the following challenges for this mission "substantial energy required for a direct trajectory, the long duration of the mission, the high total-radiation dose, and the need for radioisotope thermoelectric generators" One mission plan involved first entering Jovian orbit, then use multiple gravity assists from the Moons of Jupiter to help it to enter the orbit of Europa with less rocket fuel.
caption: Europa's anti-Jovian hemisphere showing numerous lineae.
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