NASA`s new proposed budget gets a boost to explore for extraterrestrial life

We're going to Europa! US committee assigns $18.5 billion to fund NASA's search for alien life and a mission to Jupiter's moon
--US House Appropriations Committee has revealed its budget for Nasa
--It directs NASA to start an 'Ocean Worlds Exploration Program'
--This would search for life in the solar system - such as on Europa
--However, it cuts Earth Science funding, drawing criticism from the agency

By JONATHAN O'CALLAGHAN FOR MAILONLINE
May 20, 2015

Nasa's latest budget is set to include a greater emphasis on the search for life and also fund a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa in 2022. In a draft bill, the agency has been told to start a new Ocean Worlds Exploration Program that would hunt for life in the outer solar system. But the budget proposals also include cuts for the Earth Science and private spaceflight programs, drawing criticism from both Nasa and the White House.

The bill, which can be viewed online, was drawn up by the US House Appropriations Committee and will be considered today. If passed, it will give the agency $18.529 billion of funding up to September 2016 - an increase of $519 million from last year.

Excitingly, there is a large emphasis on searching for life both in our own solar system and beyond, with multiple missions planned.

[...]

The bill proposes $140 million for a robotic mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa - $110 million above what was requested. It directs Nasa to achieve a launch ‘no later than 2022’ on its upcoming Space Launch System rocket.


The goal of the Ocean Worlds Exploration Programme would be to ‘discover [existing] life’ on one of the solar system’s outer moons. These include Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus, in addition to Europa, which are thought to have vast reservoirs of water - and possibly life - under their surface (illustrated) Img credit: NASA

A further $86 million  is intended for the Ocean Worlds Exploration Program, with a goal to ‘discover [existing] life’ on one of the solar system’s outer moons. These include Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus, in addition to Europa, which are thought to have vast reservoirs of water - and possibly life - under their surface.


Observations of Europa and other moons have heavily suggested there are vast reservoirs of liquid water underground waiting to be explored. It is theorized that the conditions in these environments could be suitable for life to survive. Img credit: NASA

[...]

While the budget doesn’t say specifically what sort of mission should be mounted, the money will be useful for researching methods to peer, or even travel beneath, the surfaces of these worlds.

The more primitive Europa Clipper mission, meanwhile, will have the goal of flying past Europa multiple times to evaluate the ocean believed to be underground.

It may even fly through ejected plumes from the moon, and Nasa is also looking at various proposals to include a lander that could analyse the surface. This could be useful in working out, for example, if it is possible to ‘melt’ the surface, which a future lander could do to explore underneath.
...

(read full article here)

Fiscal yr 2015 NASA budget includes robotic mission to Jupiter's watery moon Europa, that could take place by 2025

By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD
DAILYMAIL
March 5, 2014

2015 NASA budget in brief:
--2015 space budget remains essentially flat at $17.5 billion
--$15 million has been set aside to plan a mission to Europa
--Agency could have $1.1 billion for commercial flights to ISS
--Budget has $2.8 billion for rockets to launch manned missions
--James Webb Space Telescope, a successor to Hubble, will launch in 2018
--Budget also includes funds for a new telescope to probe dark energy
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A daring robotic mission to Jupiter's watery moon Europa could take place by 2025.

...The space agency has set aside $15 million in its budget proposal to start planning some kind of mission to Europa. Nasa is making preparations to plan a robotic mission to Jupiter's watery moon Europa, a place where astronomers speculate there might be life

Nasa is making preparations to plan a robotic mission to Jupiter's watery moon Europa, a place where astronomers speculate there might be life, credit: AP

Nasa’s chief financial officer Elizabeth Robinson said the high radiation environment around Jupiter and distance from Earth would be a challenge. When Nasa sent Galileo to Jupiter in 1989, it took the spacecraft six years to get to the fifth planet from the sun. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute astronomer Laurie Leshin said it could be ‘a daring mission to an extremely compelling object in our solar system.’ Past Nasa probes have flown by Europa, especially Galileo, but none have concentrated on the moon, one of dozens orbiting Jupiter.

Astronomers have long lobbied for a mission to Europa, but proposals would have cost billions of dollars. Last year, scientists discovered liquid plumes of water shooting up through Europa's ice. Flying through those watery jets could make Europa cheaper to explore than just circling it or landing on the ice, said Nasa Europa scientist Robert Pappalardo.

Nasa will look at many competing ideas for a Europa mission, so the agency doesn't know how big or how much it will cost, Dr Robinson said. She said a major mission goal would be searching for life in the strange liquid water under the ice-covered surface. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb said going to Europa would be more exciting than exploring dry Mars.
‘There might be fish under the ice,’ he said...

[Read the full article here by clicking here]

Are we finally on our way to Europa?

Beneath Europa's icy shell, it is thought a liquid ocean exists, potentially supporting complex organisms. Click to enlarge this image. 

  NASA

NASA CONSIDERS 7-DAY MISSION TO EUROPA
After six-year journey, probes would have a week to assess conditions for life on Jupiter's ocean-bearing moon.
By Irene Klotz Fri Dec 16, 2011 02:34 PM ET
Discovery News

THE GIST 
>The low-cost mission would send two landers to Europa.
>Spacecraft would be designed to compete their studies in a week, though they may be able to work longer. 
>Europa has a liquid ocean beneath its icy shell and is a prime candidate for life beyond Earth. 

In the search for life beyond Earth, few places beckon as strongly as Europa, an ocean-bearing, ice-covered moon circling Jupiter. But how to pull off the mission, given today's tight science budgets and competing missions, such as a sample return from Mars?

A team of scientists may have the answer: Send a pair of landers directly to Europa and design the mission to last just seven days.

 ...Radiation shielding adds to a spacecraft's size and cost.

The National Research Council's recently released study to prioritize planetary science for the next decade estimated a mission to Europa at $4.7 billion. An alternative mission, unveiled at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in San Francisco this month, would cut mission costs down to less than $1 billion. It features a pair of landers that would launch in 2020 and fly directly to Europa to assess the moon's suitability for life. They would be designed to...

 [click here to read the full article]

Jupiter`s icy moon Europa may hold vast amounts of liquid watery lakes and possibly life?

Life-bearing lake possibly on icy Jupiter Moon

Fresh findings about Europa based on studies of Antarctica and Iceland
By Irene Klotz; Discovery News

11/16/2011 2:35 PM ET

MSNBC

An image of Europa from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft shows plains of bright ice, long cracks and dark patches that likely contain both ice and dirt. NASA/Ted Stryk

New research shows that the jumbled ice blocks crowning the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa are signs of large liquid lakes below, a key finding in the search for places where life might exist beyond Earth.

Drawing from studies of underground volcanoes in Iceland and Antarctica, scientists ran computer models to see if the chaotic formations on Europa's surface could be explained by the same geologic processes seen on Earth.

"We looked at melt underneath the ice, and the fracture and collapse of ice shelves," Britney Schmidt, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics, told Discovery News.

...The study provides "the best model so far" for the ice formations on Europa, Paul Schenk, a staff scientist with the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, wrote in an email to Discovery News.

"If we go back with penetrating radar instruments we should be able to see into the ice shell, determine the stratigraphy of the layers in the shell and verify which model works best," Schenk said.

Europa, which is slightly smaller than Earth's moon, is believed to have a large ocean of salty water beneath its frozen crust.

"Europa has more water than all of Earth's oceans," planetary scientist Simon Kattenhorn, with the University of Idaho, told Discovery News.

While the ocean itself is of interest to scientists searching for life beyond Earth,...

(Click here to read the full article)


credit: Britney Schmidt/Dead Pixel VFX/Univ. of Texas at Austin & djxatlanta

Additional Resources:
[Photos] Moons of Jupiter
SCIENCE CHANNEL: Take a tour of Titan, Callisto & Europa
NEWS: Europa, Jupiter's Moon, Could Support Complex Life