Europa Jupiter System Mission: Presentations from third instrument workshop now available
29 January 2010
The third instrument workshop for the Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM), a candidate L-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision science plan, was held on 18-20 January 2010 at ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Presentations made at the workshop are now available to download from this website.The ESA-NASA Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM) consists of two primary flight elements operating in the Jovian system: the ESA-led Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter (JGO), and the NASA-led Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO). JGO and JEO will explore the Jupiter System before settling into orbit around Ganymede and Europa, respectively. JGO and JEO will carry complementary instruments to monitor dynamic phenomena (such as Io's volcanoes and Jupiter's atmosphere), map the Jovian magnetosphere and its interactions with the Galilean satellites, and characterize the habitability of Jupiter's icy worlds.
The main focus of this third instrument workshop was on the technical challenges (in particular the radiation environment and planetary protection requirements) that need to be taken into account by potential instrument providers for EJSM in preparation for an Announcement of Opportunity (AO), planned to be issued in early 2011. It is expected that, through this AO, ESA and NASA will solicit instrument proposals from both US and European consortia for the JGO (in the case of ESA) and JEO (in the case of NASA).
The presentations from this third instrument workshop are now available online (see link to 3rd EJSM instrument workshop in right-hand menu). |
The first two EJSM instrument workshops were held in the US in 2008 and 2009. This third EJSM instrument workshop, the first held in Europe, took place a few months after the initiation of the EJSM instrument studies in Europe, following the ESA Call for Declaration Of Interest (DOI) for providing instrumentation for the EJSM mission.
EJSM/JGO is in competition with two other L-class Cosmic Vision mission candidates, LISA and IXO, for a launch in 2020.