Europa Clipper Next Steps (Sept. 9, 2024)

NASA will hold a media teleconference to provide an update on Europa Clipper, a mission studying whether Jupiter’s moon Europa could be hospitable to life. The teleconference will occur after a key decision point meeting regarding next steps for the mission.

Participants:
• Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
• Laurie Leshin, center director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Curt Niebur, Europa Clipper program executive, NASA Headquarters
• Jordan Evans, Europa Clipper project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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uh thank you for your patience as we uh worked out getting the code everyone and
7:00
starting a few minutes late I am Karen Fox with NASA's office of communication at NASA headquarters and we are uh here
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today to talk about Europa Clipper which P which had a key Milestone today and we
7:16
have ready to talk Nikki Fox uh the associate administrator for Science and Massa headquarters Lori Leen the
7:23
director of JPL Kurt neber who is our program scientist for y Clipper here at
7:30
NAA headquarters and Jordan Evans the Europa Clipper project manager also at
7:38
JPL uh with no further Ado I'm going to toss to them to to speak and then we will take questions afterwards Nikki
7:45
please uh thanks everybody good afternoon and it is wonderful to be here with um incredibly good news uh so we're
7:52
all very happy here uh extremely hot off the press uh we did just put the Europa
7:58
Clipper Mission through uh the key Milestone review here that we call kdpe
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so the last sort of big review before uh we really get into that launch fever um and we're really happy to say that they
8:10
are unequivocably passed that um review today so it's just a really exciting time um as you all know at Nasa we
8:17
strive um to answer these really fundamental questions about our solar system and about our place in it and
8:25
Europa Clipper will bring us even closer to that answer um we always like to
8:30
think about how science enables exploration and exploration enables science and Europa Clipper is an
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incredibly important uh important part sorry of our science Mission directorate
8:42
portfolio um now as you're going to hear from some of the other speakers scientists believe that ju uh Jupiter's
8:48
icy Moon Europa has the suitable conditions below its surface to be able
8:54
to support life and those those ingredients are water energy and chemistry um by studying this by flying
9:01
uh close to that Moon and flying through kind of the plumes that come up it will help us better understand the
9:07
astrobiology and the potential for habitable worlds beyond our home planet
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um as we all know sending a mission into space is hard we always say that space is not for the faint of heart um and
9:19
it's even more ambitious uh to send this largest spacecraft that NASA's ever
9:24
built for Planetary Exploration and it will travel into the incredibly harsh radiation environment around Jupiter uh
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we're in we're uh proud of our incredible teams here at Nasa at JPL and
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of course with our incredible industry Partners who together have worked tirelessly uh to
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overcome lots and lots of challenges to get this Mission ready for the Launchpad
9:47
and to get it there on time and even when presented with an incredibly stiff challenge very recently the team just
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pulled out all of the stops they really worked together and they delivered a solution that will ensure that our
10:00
mission to explore this ocean world will be able to sustain this incredibly harsh
10:06
radiation environment around Jupiter so I for one cannot wait for Europa
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Clippers launch next month and I'm even more excited to see all of the incredible and the unprecedented science
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that our science Community has been waiting for for decades um so I look forward to the incredible science that
10:24
we will get for Clipper in the generations to come as always NASA science will continue to deliver every
10:30
second of every day and as I pass over to my dear friend Lori Leen I will say
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to her go Europa clip up all right thank you Nikki uh thank you for your
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incredible support everyone here in SMD and thank you to our Europa Clipper team for their extraordinary efforts which
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were also lotted in today's NASA review I am thrilled to say that we are confident that our beautiful spacecraft
10:54
and capable team are ready for launch operations and our full science mission at Europa as you all have probably heard
11:02
we have undertaken rigorous testing in recent months and Analysis to be sure
11:08
that our transistors on Europa Clipper will be able to withstand the harsh radiation environment at Jupiter and its
11:14
Moon Europa this was a huge lift and I think huge lift is a huge
11:20
understatement it was done with our usual high standards and exacting approach honed over jpl's Decades of
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experience in developing managing and operating deep space missions getting to this
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Milestone required shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration even Beyond JPL we worked with of course with our colleagues at
11:38
NASA headquarters we had tests going not only in every facility we could find at JPL but also every facility we could
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find at Nasa gard and also at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics laboratory it was an incredible team effort and we're
11:51
so grateful for all the support right now we're moving Full Speed Ahead towards the opening of our lunch window
11:57
on October 10th and soon the spacecraft will lift off from Kennedy Space Center and then it's off to Jupiter so go team
12:04
Clipper um we're excited and ready to carry out EUR euroba Clippers Mission as planned so we are on our what we would
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call our Baseline science plan the plan that we had before we discovered the challenge with the transistors we are
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now confident that we can deliver that mission which will deliver incredible science first we have to make a 1.8
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billion mile journey to get to Jupiter in 2030 and spacecraft as you heard from
12:30
Nikki is designed to uh explore and observe the icy ocean Moon Europa exclusively and thoroughly it'll
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make 49 science Gathering close flybys past Europa over the course of its fouryear science Mission it has a
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stunning array of sensors 10 science investigations that will help us understand europa's icy crust and Global
12:51
ocean that we suspect Lies Beneath it as well as determine its chemical composition and geology
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the mission's detailed exploration of Europa will help determine whether the moon could support Life as we know it
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whether its environment is habitable at JPL we're very proud to manage the Europa Clipper Mission the
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largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for a planetary Mission and one of the largest ever to be assembled in our
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clean room JPL is the world leader in planetary and deep space robotic Exploration with Decades of unique and
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deeply technical experience and we needed every bit of it in getting this spacecraft ready for launch our missions
13:29
have visited every planet in our solar system and of course there's the voyagers that are even beyond the solar
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system uh at JPL our motto is dare Mighty things together and Europa Clipper is a testament to how we do just
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that about 4,000 people across the US and Europe have worked on this Mission since it was officially approved in 2015
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many of them will continue their work on it and many thousands more will be involved in flying it and involved in
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the science for decades to come uh because this these data will change the
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textbooks will um give us uh generations of of new knowledge about the incredible
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Moon Europa so I'm excited to say that we've met this moment and we can't wait to be on our way to Europa now I'm going
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to throw it over to Kurt neber program scientist for Europa Clipper thanks Lori
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you Lori just mentioned that the sheer number of people that have contributed to get us where we are today I'd like to
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touch very briefly on the amount of time that it's taken to get us to where we are today when I started at head NASA
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headquarters in 2003 I was given the challenge of pushing a Europa mission
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forward and I began that thinking that I had a really solid appreciation of how
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long and difficult the road ahead was going to be and I was completely and utterly wrong about that it was much
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harder than than I anticipated and it felt like it simply got harder and
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harder with each year that went by and there was there was no harder year than
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this past year and especially this past summer there was simply challenge after
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challenge after challenge culminating in in the mosfet transistor problem that
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we've recently overcome but through all of that through all those years the one thing that we never doubted was that
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this was going to be worth it because as as Lori said this is an epic it it's a
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chance for us to explore not a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago but a world that might be
15:36
habitable today right now A a chance to do the first exploration of this new
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kind of world that we've discovered very recently called an ocean world that is
15:48
just totally immersed and covered in a liquid waterer ocean completely unlike anything we've seen
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before that's what's awaiting us at Europa that's what that's what Europa Clipper and her team are going to unveil
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for us and it has definitely been worth the wait it's been worth the hard work
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and right now I went hand it over to Jordan Evans who's the project manager and it's Jordan and his team that have
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gotten us here uh at the beginning the summer I shared with Jordan that I was worried that we were asking the
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impossible of this team and that it was just too much and Jordan and the team
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completely delivered on the impossible they saved this mission this summer they're the ones that have
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opened the way for us to get this spacecraft to the launch pad and then get the spacecraft to Europa so that the
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science can start so Jordan I just want to say thank you very much wow thank you very much Kurt and I'll start by saying
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we are ready for Jupiter you know we've now that we've completed this key NASA review we're focused on heading towards
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the launch pad doing the final preparations our launch period opens October 10th and we're on track to start
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that journey to Jupiter one big challenge was analyzing how those TR transistors on the spacecraft would handle the radiation environment at
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Jupiter and after extensive testing and Analysis of the transistors the Europa Clipper project and I personally have
17:08
high confidence that we can complete the original mission for exploring Europa as planned it's a very difficult
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environment uh in terms of radiation at Europa Jupiter's engulfed in more radiation than any planet in our solar
17:19
system that's one of the reasons why exploring the Jupiter system is so challenging the radiation near Jupiter
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is is a kind of space weather it bombards everything in its sphere of uence with damaging particles uh the
17:31
planet's giant magnetic field acts as a particle accelerator it captures those particles accelerates charge particles
17:36
to create these powerful radiation belts and Europa sits near the outer edge of the worst part of that radiation belt
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and so flying near Europa exposes us to this high flux of damaging particles and so the mission Engineers on Europa
17:50
Clipper need to be sure that the spacecraft components can survive that radiation environment for the duration of our four-year Prime
17:57
mission as soon as we had learned that uh there might be an issue with our transistors which was back at the
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beginning of May uh at JPL we moved quickly as a project uh and as a lab and
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agency with our partners as well to quickly analyze the risks and conduct tests um generated tremendous amount of
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data we know a lot about the the Jupiter radiation environment from previous NASA missions including the current Juno
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Mission which is that Jupiter right now we completed extensive testing to validate the transistors on the
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spacecraft we ran tests 24 hours a day over the last four months um at multiple
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locations at the jet propulsion laboratory at the Applied Physics laboratory and at at the NASA Goddard space flight center we simulated flight
18:40
like conditions to illuminate any issues that the transistors might have over our four-year science Mission across the
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variety of applications we have on the spacecraft um we put these representative transm uh
18:52
transistors into these environments are rated radiated entire circuits and to see how the system behaves and not just
18:58
the transistors the themselves uh we looked at transistor temperatures while the spacecraft was outside of Jupiter's
19:03
most intense radiation environment to determine how much recovery we might be able to get from these transistors while we're not in that intense radiation
19:09
environment after each flyby we've replicated that transistor self-healing or analing as it's called that occurs by
19:16
heating them to room temperature while they they essentially rest far from that intense radiation environment as we go
19:21
around each orbit of Jupiter before ruing back with Europa again the underlying issue was that
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there was a gap happen the way uh in how industry qualifies the kind of Hardware like mosfets for high radiation
19:34
environments um the parts in question the semiconductor uh in the transistors are cut from Silicon Wafers and those
19:41
silicon Wafers met the radiation hardness requirements that we needed um but then those semiconductor Wafers
19:48
degraded while in storage uh we concluded after all of this testing um
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that during our orbits around Jupiter while EUR Clipper does dip into the radiation environment once it comes out
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it comes out long enough for those transistors the opportunity to heal and partially recover between flybys we're
20:07
going to continue to closely monitor the both the radiation environment we have a radiation monitor on board as well as
20:12
the performance of the transistors from the ground once we are in flight and once we arrive at the Jupiter system to
20:18
accomplish this we've uh received help from many corners including the vendor the vendor's been immensely proactive
20:24
and helpful throughout all of our work um to reiterate what's already been said we can and I have very high confidence
20:31
and the data Bears it out uh complete the original Mission which is 49 flybys of Europa and amounts to 80 orbits of
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Jupiter uh over that that fouryear period our spacecraft itself is currently in atlo we assembly test and
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launch operations um at the Kennedy Space Center a couple of weeks ago we installed the immense solar arrays on
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the spacecraft and now that we've completed this key Nas review we're ready for our final launch preparations
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and reviews and we are ready for Europa at this point I'll hand it back to you
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Karen can you tell her fantastic thank you all we do have
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some questions on the line as a reminder if you want to get into the queue to ask a question go ahead and press star one
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our first question is from Jeff F with space
21:19
news hey good afternoon um just to to make sure fully understand this um
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you've confirmed that the the transistors can handle the radiation environment and you don't need to
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modify um any aspects of say the trajectory the spacecraft is going to take during the Euro Europa flybys um
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giving your understanding of how they respond to the radiation environment so in other words you you can proceed with
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the mission as earlier planned you're not making any changes to the mission as a result of these studies thanks yeah
21:52
Jeff that is correct the mission trajectory is the exact same Mission trajectory that we've been planning and studying for the past two plus years as
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a science team and that was Jordan Evans who was speaking and I'll remind speakers just
22:04
identify themselves before they answer questions uh we'll try to remember to do that on our side um thank you so much
22:11
our next question is from Marsha Don with the Associated
22:16
Press yes hi um you mentioned that there may be some degradation of these
22:22
transistors um during the high radiation periods but they can heal when they come
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out of this this uh intense Zone how much time elapses between these flybys
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with the Intensive radiation and how can you be so sure that they'll heal properly enough to be
22:43
able to carry out the mission is plan thank you this is Jordan Evans again uh for
22:50
the first half of our uh Mission we fly on a 21-day orbit around Jupiter and so
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one day of that 21 days is at during the is the flyby and that's when we are in that intense radiation environment so we
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have 20 days outside of that environment all of the testing that we did when we looked at at that healing at that
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analing we used uh durations that were far smaller than that so we were conservative in our testing to show that
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uh we understood how much of kneeling time we would need and then demonstrate that we had far more than that with
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margin over each of the the Jupiter orbits
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fantastic thank you so much our next question is from Bill
23:37
Harwood yeah hey thank you very much and I think this is for Jordan as well um I'm just wondering can you can you take
23:43
another crack at explaining exactly what the radiation does to the transistors I'm I'm not sure physically what's going
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on and when you say it's a kneeling or or healing or whatever it's doing how does it get restored to its or close to
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its original state that's number one number two is how many of these these transistors are on board the spacecraft
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in total thanks uh this is Jordan again um so it
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it's device level physics right these are um metal oxide um Field Effect
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transistors so think of them as electronic switches where you apply a voltage and you can close an electronic switch and so um understanding how the
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behavior of that switch and the amount of voltage it takes to turn it on or off degrades over radiation is something
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that is is well known in Industry as well as understanding then how um
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getting out of that environment and warming it may restore some of that
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damage that's the the first question the second question the these transistors exist all across the uh the spacecraft
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um I can say that we have 200 unique applications where uh it may be duplicated multiple times but uh in
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different circuits across all the the spacecraft and the
25:02
instruments thank you so much uh moving on to our next question which is with
25:08
Joel aeno from The Washington Post thank you very much are there other
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aspects of the mission where you have a critical path or a potential single point failure other than the transistors
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that that you are focused on or you know that will um get a lot of attention in
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other words other engineering challenges and I a second question if I could is
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will this Mission determine if there's life under the icy crust of Europa or
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will it only determine it that there might be life in other words what could
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you detect uh living things with this Mission why didn't you
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say this is Kurt neber it's important to note that Europa Clipper is not a life
25:56
detection Mission and there are two reasons for that one is it would be premature the first thing we need to do
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is figure out are the proper ingredients there to support Life as We Know It And as as uh Dr Fox mentioned we're
26:11
reasonably confident that almost all of those ingredients are there but we don't know for sure so we need to answer the
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habitability question first and the reason we need to answer the habitability question first is because the second reason we don't have a life
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detector there's no such thing as a tricorder or instrument that we can point at something and it returns a blip
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or a blop telling us if it's alive or not it is extremely difficult to be able
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to detect life especially from orbit uh so first we're going to ask the straightforward question are the proper
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ingredients there for life to exist and you can bet your bottom dollar that if Europa Clipper tells us yes those
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ingredients are there that we are going to be knocking on the door fighting for a second mission to go looking for life
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can I just add one thing to that this is Lori hael um you know the the thing we will learn with eura Clipper is where
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follow-up missions might want to go right we'll learn where the ice might be thinned um where there could be
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upwelling of water from the ocean in modern times um and so we're going to learn a lot about how to get smarter
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about asking that question over time I'm working sorry this is Nikki
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working in concert with like the James web Space Telescope that just took the amazing images of Europa for showing us
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these incredible plumes is even more tent is for us to go and make these CL
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F and then this is Jordan Evans responding to the question about the critical bath the critical path at this point goes through the spacecraft itself
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so the next steps at the Kennedy Space Center are the final Closeouts install before four flight items the remove
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before flight items fueling the vehicle which starts later this week and then ultimately The Joint operations that we
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have with the launch vehicle attaching to the payload fitting encapsulating into the Fairing and then rolling out to
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the pad and again this is Lori they're not working any additional major technical
28:02
issues at this time excellent point we yeah in this review today we are green for technical normal normal work to go
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to to get to along yeah yeah we are technical green woohoo feels great to say
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that all right thank you so much uh our next question is from Lisa grman with
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science news
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Lisa are you there all right uh since we can't hear
28:40
Lisa now uh I'm going to move on to the next question which is uh David Brown
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with the New York [Music] Times hi this question is for uh Dr Fox
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and Dr neber my understanding that not long after the moset issue was discovered um and the extent of the
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problem was still uncertain the project presented a suite of options to NASA
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headquarters uh among them was Des scoping the mission to a smaller number of flyby so the launch window could
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still be made how would you each characterize your response to that
29:15
option um thanks for the question um it's exactly what I would expect um any
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good mission team to do which was they came and they presented as you said um a suite of options um obviously you know
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the the the perfect outcome is the one that we've had which is being able to figure out a way to keep keep the
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mission uh exactly at the full science that we wanted to have but um it was
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certainly an option uh if you you don't want to not fly a mission and if there's a way to get some science even if it's
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not as much as you might have originally wanted it is still better to get some science and so we we really thanked the
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team for coming up with a different um kind of a different flight path if you like for the mission um but we're very
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grateful that we did not have to go with that option and we were able to take advantage of the incredible work from
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the team and uh we are able to as lorri said in her remarks uh achieve the full
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science of the mission c i I would just add that I was very gratified from the
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beginning all the way through to the end to see the level of commitment among everybody working this problem not just
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to fix the problem but to remain committed to the full science of the mission
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thank you so much uh our next question is from Stephen Clark with ours
30:38
techa thank you I think my question's uh probably for Jordan um you you're
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talking about being able to collect the full science Baseline Mission no changes no changes to the trajectory any changes
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at all in the way you operate the spacecraft to be able to meet that uh Baseline Mission with this transist
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issue or did all the testing simply show that the transistors will work for the
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Baseline Mission and then any uh any risk or concern going forward with a potential extended mission that this may
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put that in Jeopardy thanks very good yeah this is Jordan responding so regarding the the first question that
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the changes um you know I talked about um the the healing the analing that happens outside of the radiation
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environment that analing is improved with temperature and so some of our two
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of our colder instruments that are outside of our our uh fluid Loop that that warms the remaining components in
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the spacecraft they operate at a colder temperature by Design uh in order to minimize the energy and so changing
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their software controlled heater set points to a slightly warmer temperature is is the impact so instead of dialing
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the thermostat to one temperature you dial it a little bit warmer when you're outside of the radiation environment and
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and that warms them up in terms of an extended the potential for an extended Mission I'll say that that all of these
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200 unique applications are looked at uh were looked at um and then independently looked at um by outside folks to look at
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at circuit margins and ensure that that with the mosfets that are present on the vehicle that uh we would have
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appropriate voltage margin and so that voltage margin is not necessarily for an extended Mission it's for things that
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happen in complex missions in uncertain environments um but those margins are there they are positive um and um give
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us good confidence certainly in the Baseline Mission um but not that we would expect it to just immediately drop
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off right after that right now I I'll just I'll just add to that Stephen this is Nikki just that we are looking forward to their extended Mission so um
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as Jordan said they have margin um and we have no reason to uh to expect
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anything other than a great four years and an extended Mission beyond
32:53
that all right thank you very much we're going to do Lisa Grossman again again from Science News let's hope it works
32:59
this time sorry about that Lisa uh your turn hi can you hear me now
33:05
yes hi I actually was going to ask about the extended Mission as well um and I so
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thank you um that was my question so you're
33:17
good all right another vote for an extended Mission all right our next
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person then will be Irene CL with Aviation news please
33:28
thanks Karen um I was wondering if uh the uh launch to to be ready for an
33:36
October 10th launch um do you need the 39a by September 14th or is that able to
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slip a couple days so this is Nikki um that is all
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part of the negotiations that are handled for us by the launch Services Program uh at at Kennedy n Kennedy Space
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Center and they are watching uh many launches uh the wonderful thing about Kennedy right now is it is an incredibly
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active space port and say they are watching and they are helping us with to deconflict um many launches that will be
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uh at the cape at the same time thank you so much our next question
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is from Isam ahed with AFP uh hi thanks again um just to go
34:26
back to the question about uh this is not being a detection Mission could could you maybe just a little expand a
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little on what's your sort of best outcome scenarios uh in terms of what we can gather from um from Europa uh
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Clipper and um and one of the worst outcomes and sorry very quick to follow up on the transistors are these sort of
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stock transistors nothing special about them or are they are they in any way sort of um uh high-tech I have been you
34:53
know quick Google talked about nanowire transistors specifically buil to withstand Cosmic um cosmic rays um
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thanks Jordan why don't you take that that one below first yeah so these are standard industry radiation hardened uh
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transistors Lai do you want to talk about the excitement of theic yeah um so
35:16
I don't think there's a worst case because because honestly we're going to learn so much it's going to be incredible no matter what we find that's
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the beauty of of exploring the unknown in new ways which we're definitely doing
35:28
with the the incredible depth and detail we're going to get from Europa Clippers 10 science investigation so we're going
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to um explore the the icy shell and the and the ocean beneath to the S sensing
35:41
that from our multiple flybys we're going to be looking at the chemistry of the system that is both the chemistry on
35:48
the surface and in anything that's being emitted from the surface any kind of plumes that will fly through and sort of
35:55
taste Taste the rainbow at Europa uh and and get to tell what the what materials
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are being emitted and then um lastly we'll be looking at the surface the geology if you will of this icy crust to
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understand um the geologic history of this Moon including potentially very
36:14
recent activity that would change the surface and so we're just going to be learning a ton about the the the
36:22
physical and chemical makeup of Europa and how it is changing and evolving over
36:27
time all of these will teach us about whether this environment is habitable yeah and I
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think it's interesting that the sort of the idea of the the bad results um you know as you say there's there's no bad
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if we go there and we find water and energy and chemistry that opens up a whole rum of questions if we go there
36:45
and we find no water no energy and no chemistry that also opens up a whole wealth of questions why did we think
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this and why is it not there so there really is not this is a voyage into the unknown and and this is it's going to be
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incredible incredible science no matter which way of the equation that falls and and I think it's important to point out
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that the with the 10 investigations it's extraordinarily multidisiplinary we're looking we we're sensing this moon in
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pretty much every way we can think of um without landing on it right we're flying by it uh and so but we're going to get
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different spectral signatures we're going to be you know penetrating the ice with radar we're going to be looking at
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magnetic signatures at particles and field field that chemistry like every single way you can think of we are going
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to be analyzing it it's a very comprehensive and multidisciplinary payload and the team will work together
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to sort of fuse those results into new insights for this exciting Moon and you're hoping to do some science on the
37:42
way out and other planetary body yeah we fly by Mars on the Jupiter yeah that's
37:48
right and this is curit if I could just add I'll be The Optimist and can go back to your best case scenario uh if we do
37:55
get there and and Lori mentioned the multidisciplinary approach you need that multidisiplinary approach because
38:01
answering the habitability question needs uh an approach from from
38:06
a lot of different vectors but if we get there and we do this investigation and the good news is it has all the
38:12
ingredients and it is habitable just think of what that means that there are two places in one solar system that have
38:20
all the ingredients for life that that are habitable right now at the same time think of what that means when you extend
38:26
that result to the billions and billions of other solar systems in this galaxy uh setting aside the is there
38:34
life question on Europa just the habitability question in and of itself
38:40
opens up a huge new paradigm for searching for life in the in the Galaxy
38:45
great Point wonderful thank you uh we'll move
38:50
on to our next question which is from Ken Kramer with space up close hi thank you for doing this and
38:57
I'm very glad to hear that uh the transistors are doing great I'll be at the launch so I want to ask about the uh
39:04
science instruments can you talk a little bit in detail about what they are and how they're going to look for signs
39:11
of Life uh and the plumes will you be flying through the plumes is there a mass spec to determine the chemistry
39:19
there so if you could talk some detail i' I'd appreciate it thank you well how
39:25
long do you have yes excellent this is Lori C that okay if I jump yeah
39:30
definitely yes so um to answer your more specific question we do have a mass spec built by the Southwest Research
39:36
Institute so all of these uh sensors on board were um awarded through
39:41
competition so they're built by uh different organizations around the country so both the mass spectrometer
39:48
and also a dust analyzer will be doing insu kind of measurements of the actual material that's out there uh as we fly
39:56
through it um also be sensing the magnetic field which is helpful if you want to think about a circulating uh
40:03
saline ocean you should see magnetic um uh results from that um and analyzing
40:09
all we'll be analyzing the radiation environment there which will be quite helpful as we try and compare to our
40:15
recent test results for the transistors then we have a bunch of remote sensing instruments so we're going to be looking
40:21
at Europa in the ultraviolet um in the visible um with two a narrow Ang and a wide angle camera
40:29
that the images are going to be spectacular um an infrared spectrometer
40:34
and a far infrared spectrometer which is a thermal imager which will allow us to look for hotpots and then we have our
40:40
ice penetrating radar and lastly we actually use our um our uh radio on
40:46
board to sense the gra the gravity around Jupiter or I'm sorry around Europa so incredible science
40:53
investigations pretty much every wavelength and in situ instruments too
40:58
yeah and I I just want to sort of repeat what Kurt said towards the beginning which is this is not a life detection
41:04
Mission yeah you want to add anything well you mentioned what's the
41:10
probability of us flly through plumes and I will say twoo things one we have a couple of instruments on board that are
41:17
ideally suited to analyzing the plumes one is the the ultraviolet instrument which is a great plume Hunter it can
41:24
spot the plumes from a very long distance away uh and the second thing I'll say is we would love to fly through
41:30
a PLO but first we've got to be able to find them and they've got to stay active long enough for us to get the spacecraft
41:38
through them and I I think that's going to be the challenge now if Europa cooperates with us and we're able to fly
41:44
through one we have some instruments on board that are going to do a heck of a lot of fantastic science with that
41:49
material that we analyze great thank you so much uh our
41:56
next question is from Manuel mazanti with exploration
42:02
esaal thank you and congratulations on the Milestone review and for sharing all this incredible data with us just quick
42:09
question regarding the transistors uh let me see if I understood correctly so you didn't have to modify or upgrade
42:17
them in any way and then due to the extensive testing that you have done you have proven that they work and these 20
42:24
days that you have between flight by helps it's a in a helps it to recover in
42:30
a process called called healing yeah this is Jordan that is
42:36
correct so yeah that process is is technically referred to as a kneeling and essentially it recovers some of the
42:42
the damage that it took during the radiation environment and the way we got there is essentially we designed these
42:49
these missions for uncertain uh environments and so that uncertainty leads us to ensure that we
42:56
have we have design margins and so looking at at those design margins and the assumptions that were made early on
43:02
that just kill a problem well now we have to sharpen our P our pencils and finesse it a little bit more and get into the details of that circuit and
43:08
what can that circuit take and that allowed us to say yes we can do this Mission with the resistors that are
43:13
installed on board the transistors excuse me that are installed on board the spacecraft and can I just say this
43:19
team they analyzed every circuits they tested every kind of part I mean this
43:25
was such an incredibly thorough job done by a team that has been working 24/7 since 4 months ago when we found
43:32
out about this issue and to be able to sit here today and confidently say this
43:38
mission is going to be awesome and we're going to fly our Baseline science is something that that we're so thrilled to
43:45
be able to do but it's because of a bunch of hard work and Jordan I think it might be helpful if you describe
43:51
actually what you mean by what analing means oh what an yes yeah so um
43:57
it's it really at the device physics level but a kneeling is um at different
44:02
temperatures particularly at warmer elevated temperatures the device itself um some of the positive and negatively
44:09
charged particles that might migrate to one part under the radiation damage starts to migrate you in different
44:15
places and and that that's a process that is fairly well known and it's referred to as a kneeling and again um
44:22
it it it's more active as the temperature goes up
44:27
so from a kneeling standpoint warmer is better all right thank you so much our
44:35
next question is going to be from uh Bill Harwood with CBS News again welcome
44:42
back Bill thank you very much I just want to take another crack at the very question Kurt was just answering um I
44:47
don't understand what happens when it's in the radiation environment if a circuit has a problem what does that
44:54
mean does that mean that the instrument that circuit is in doesn't work does it mean the data is degraded or is it none
45:01
of the above and you know it somehow affects the longevity of the circuit so I'm really unclear as to what the threat
45:07
was that we were you were trying to resolve and to follow up Irene cl's record and this is also for Kurt um her
45:13
question um clearly the the 39a has to be clear by some point for you guys to get off on the 10th I'm just wondering
45:19
what the I think she was wondering what the Bingo date is for that when do when does the pad have to get turned over
45:25
realizing there's some slop in that's good but I know you must know what that what that Target is that's what she was
45:30
asking that's what I'm asking thanks Bill this is Jordan and I think
45:35
you you meant to direct those questions to Jordan Evans the project manager so regarding the transistors every one of
45:41
those circuits is different and the consequence of the mosfet degrading below what we could tolerate is
45:48
different in some cases the switch just basically goes on permanently and if that switch was turning on a a little
45:55
one watt decontamination heater well then that's really not a big deal to the mission but if that circuit is telling
46:00
the spacecraft you know that that um it needs to go into safe mode that's a little bigger deal that's a much bigger
46:07
deal and so we analyzed every one of those circuits and how robust and tolerant they are to degraded
46:13
transistors and again determined that we had sufficient margin in every one of those circuits uh to accomplish this
46:20
Mission Flagship Mission with confidence uh and then again regarding
46:26
the PAD as as Dr Fox pointed out the NASA's launch Services Program manages
46:31
that um the spacecraft itself doesn't actually go out to the pad to mate to the launch vehicle until a few days
46:38
before launch and so it's really about the time it takes to ready the pad from one launch to another which is really
46:43
launch Services Program and the the launch vehicle provider and of course we can always
46:49
follow up as we get more information uh you know we'll where we share all that information as soon as we get it and
46:55
we'll we'll so um all right thank you moving on to our
47:01
next question we have about 10 15 minutes left uh if you want to get in the queue remember to press star one uh
47:09
but our next question will be with Marsha Smith uh from space policy
47:14
online thanks so much for taking my question I'm curious as to what we can expect during the six-year Journey out
47:21
there you mentioned visiting Mars what is it going to look like at Mars are we going to get images back during the
47:27
six-year Journey what exactly can we expect between now and when it reaches
47:35
Jupiter this is Jordan Evans I I'll take that um so yeah Mars is actually um part
47:41
of our uh our trajectory so we the trajectory that we fly to Jupiter is a Mars Earth gravity assist so four months
47:48
after launch um our primary function at Mars is to steal a little angular momentum and slingshot ourselves out and
47:55
then about a little over a year later we come back and do the same thing at Earth before heading out to Jupiter and so
48:01
because Mars is there we have an opportunity to do some calibrations on a couple of the instruments and so we do
48:08
plan but those are secondary to the gravity assist itself we do plan to do calibrations of a couple of instruments
48:14
um when we're at Mars uh we don't plan any calibrations at Earth and so over 5
48:20
and a half years we will be doing checkouts of all of the different systems uh we will be we will be doing a
48:26
simulated flyby while we're not around any particular body heading and then we will certainly be preparing for our
48:32
Jupiter orbit insertion in April of 2030 and then uh the start of our science tour will we get images before Joi like
48:40
as we approach juper I can't remember if that's in our Baseline plan do you know C we have the ability
48:47
to do so I'm not sure if we're planning on doing but there will be calibration activities the Imaging at Mars will be
48:54
very limited because the cameras one of the cameras will still have a cover on it you have to remember these
48:59
instruments are designed to operate at Europa and at Jupiter which is a much different environment than say Mars and
49:06
Earth so we we have to be very careful in our use of the instruments before we
49:11
get to Jupiter make sure that that we don't damage them inadvertently by trying to get
49:18
[Music] data all right uh next up we have stepen
49:23
Clark with our Technica
49:28
hi thank you I think my question is for Jordan as well you mentioned fueling uh starts later this week uh how much
49:35
propellant are actually loading into the spacecraft you have a a figure for that and uh we kind of walk through some of
49:41
the steps uh just practical logistical Steps From the spacecraft side to get to
49:47
the point where you're ready to made up to the Falcon 9 or Falcon heavy thanks sure so I'm going to speak in rough
49:53
numbers on the fueling I know first and foremost we filled the tank full so there's no limitation that we
49:59
only need to go partial because of of mass limitations or anything like that and so it's roughly uh it's roughly half
50:06
the spacecrafts are roughly 3,000 kg of of propellant and oxidizer we by
50:13
propellant system and the second question was regarding uh the steps to
50:18
get out uh to mating with the launch vehicle out to the pad is that correct there
50:29
there okay yeah so uh with respect to that so fueling operations takes a
50:34
little over a week we have some margin on the back end of that um and then we start what's called Joint operations
50:39
with the launch vehicle and that's where um we mate to the payload attached fitting inside the clean room where we
50:45
are at Kennedy Space Center they bring in the two halves of the the nose cone the fairing uh and uh mate that up they
50:53
put us on the back of a transporter set up our Purge and air conditioning and roll us out to a hanger that is adjacent
50:59
to pad 39a at that hanger we go horizontal where we made up to the Falcon heavy rocket that is already uh
51:06
in position in the hanger we do additional checkouts there uh because our T we during the ascent our
51:13
spacecraft Telemetry goes through the launch vehicle and we get the data down that way and so we test that we've
51:18
tested early versions of that already um but we will test the final mates and then as I mentioned earlier then just uh
51:25
couple of days before launch we roll out to the pad and point to the sky all right thank you so much our next
51:33
question is from Michael gresco with nature magazine hi thank you all so much for
51:39
doing this I think this might be for for Jordan um could could you all um just
51:46
clarify kind of the the the timeline and and and how um you all came to learn of
51:54
the moset issue specifically and um is this an issue that could
51:59
potentially affect or uh alter the operations of issa's juice Mission and
52:06
if so have you all been in touch um with your partners at Issa um regarding that
52:12
thanks sure uh this is Jordan yeah responding uh regarding the timeline so
52:17
we were notified there was a a conference where electronic parts Engineers that deal with things like
52:23
transistors uh meet and and share and there was an informal
52:28
conversation um with a with the chief engineer of our parts organization at JPL that said Hey to hear about some
52:34
recent data that came up from a non-asa customer that that uh might implicate or
52:40
indicate that the transistors um might fail at something less than they were originally qualified for it from a
52:45
radiation dose standpoint so I think that was that was 10:30 on a Thursday night um by that weekend we had well by
52:52
the next day we had a full inventory of all our parts by that weekend stood up a tiger team um first thing we did was get
53:00
some spare parts into test and we confirmed exactly what had been said to our our parts chief engineer and that
53:07
led to four months of round-the-clock testing at multiple locations around the
53:12
country it led to a quest for spare parts that were the exact lot date codes
53:18
and part numbers of everything on the spacecraft and instruments um and all of
53:24
the circuit analyses and led to the conclusion that we arrived at uh I guess about a week ago now um that that we did
53:32
not find the one Short Straw that prevented us from the the the mission that we had planned to
53:37
[Music] fly very nice thank you Mike wall with
53:43
space.com is our next question thank you for doing this um
53:49
this is yeah this is probably also for Jordan could could you just say what what would have been the sort of next
53:55
steps if if you guys did not pass this review today um like would you definitely miss that this this upcoming
54:02
launch window what what like what would you have done if you got in bad news today just just sort of lay out what
54:07
those steps would have been Thanks uh hi this is Nikki I'm going to take that one um so had they not passed uh today it
54:15
would have it would have been very dependent on the reason that they had not passed the review today whether it
54:20
was uh we needed to delay the launch in order to do some extra work before the launch or whether it was a a very bad
54:27
day and we were not able to proceed to launch but fortunately that did not happen and they passed uh extremely well
54:34
um but uh so they'll move to fueling the end of next week and end of this week
54:39
end of this week that's right end of this week um and then go into the regular launch flow um to get the
54:44
spacecraft ready but it really would have depended on the reason that they did not pass uh that would have that
54:49
would have given the severity of the impact
54:56
thank you so much our next question is from Marsha dun with the Associated
55:02
Press yes hi I have two quick numbers questions is the mission cost still
55:07
projected at about $5 billion and if you miss the October window when is the next
55:14
opportunity thanks uh Hey Mara this is Nikki uh so the uh life cycle cost for
55:20
the mission is just under $5.2 billion um and it had we not been able
55:26
to uh continue for a launch uh the next launch window would have been in 20 26
55:33
months months I'm sorry I'm sorry 13 months I apologize 13 thinking of a different Mission 13
55:41
months there's a lot going on there's a lot going on right now 13 months for the next one sorry
55:47
Mara um all right uh next up we have Robert
55:54
Andrews uh hey there yeah this just a brief point on the analing uh thing just so I understand so um when the
56:00
spacecraft is out of the radiation clouds are you commanding the circuitry to warm up of it so it can like the
56:08
transistors can sort of heal their damage on a on an atomic level what I'm just trying to get the specifics of what
56:14
the a kneeling process actually is like what it's actually doing this is Jordan
56:19
the way you described it is exactly right we warm them up so that they can cover some of the damage but even if you
56:25
don't warm them up they recover some even at lower temperatures yes and if you want to accelerate that you can warm
56:30
them a bit more yeah thank you Dr Le at at lower temperatures it's uh it's a lower rate of healing and so a little
56:37
extra heat helps accelerate that with each uh each orbit all right see this is Cur of if I could just add yeah I want
56:43
to make clear that we're only going to anal a couple of parts right now because the rest of
56:49
them are fine once we get to you Jupiter and Europa if we find that things are degrading worse than we expected then
56:56
then we can enal more of them so we actually have a lot more resiliency to the europan environment than we
57:02
originally anticipated when we discovered the mosbat problem and that's one of the reasons that we feel confident launching is that we have
57:10
other steps we can take that we're currently not planning to take that are available to us in the
57:16
future good point thank you we have time for just one more question which is NAA Drake
57:22
with scientific Americans hi thank you for taking my question um I
57:29
was wondering what absorbed radiation dosage did you calculate the spacecraft could tolerate like is there a number
57:36
that we could put on it that could help us compare the current situation to a more ideal situation um and then
57:42
expanding on Michael greska's question are there any other spacecraft in operation that you're aware of that are
57:48
also affected by these transistors thank
57:53
you so so this is Jordan so in terms of the radiation we looked specifically at
57:59
the dose that we expect uh including uncertainty for every transistor on the
58:04
spacecraft and they're all getting different doses something that's that's outside of our shielded Electronics
58:09
Vault for example we'll see a higher dose and so we looked at the performance of each transistor lot date code against
58:16
the expected dose with the appropriate radiation design margins that you would apply for that type of analysis and
58:22
ensured that in those circuits we still had the appropriate voltage margins coming coming out of the backside of them uh so we we did that across the
58:29
board obviously the environment outside of the spacecraft is extremely challenging millions of chest x-rays uh
58:35
equivalent dosage with each flyby 100,000 per flyby 100,000 within yeah
58:41
within our reference yeah but the surface yeah a million and in terms of of other missions we know that Jupiter
58:48
Jo Juno is at Jupiter and it has mosfets and some mosfets are of a similar
58:54
generation to the ones that were flying so that's one data point I can't speak to to other missions uh but not many
59:01
would have the kind of requirements that going to Jupiter uh
59:07
requires all right I think we are finished it brings us to the top of the hour uh I want to say thank you for
59:13
everyone who joined us today thank you to our speakers and for the participants if you did not uh have a chance to get
59:20
your question answered you should certainly feel free uh to contact me Karen Fox and we will will uh see what
59:27
we can do to get it answered uh for more information you can always cheack uh
59:32
nasa.gov Europa Clipper Europa Clipper I always wanted to say Europa sorry about
59:37
that and uh thank you so much thank you this does conclude
59:44
today's conference you may disconnect at this
59:55
time e