Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

This artist’s rendering shows NASA’s Europa mission spacecraft, which is being developed for a launch sometime in the 2020s.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Carroll

NASA’s Europa Clipper, now en route to Jupiter, departed with less-than-satisfactory and vulnerable devices that are susceptible to Jupiter’s intense radiation.

The spacecraft’s liftoff on October 14 of last year, in many ways, is arguably a fingers-crossed undertaking, but one that has already produced a number of lessons-learned provisos, including the use of “Mil-Spec” parts for spacecraft forays beyond Earth.

Mil-Spec is short for “military specifications,” a set of criteria and standards promulgated by the U.S. Department of Defense and established to assure quality, reliability, and compatibility of parts used in aerospace.

Artist’s conception of water vapor plume erupting from the icy surface of Europa, a moon of Jupiter, based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Credit: NASA/ESA/K. Retherford/SWRI

Prime mission

Europa Clipper is to reach Jupiter in April 2030, then perform repeated close flybys of one of giant Jupiter’s enigmatic moons, Europa. At the time of launch through its prime mission ending in 2034, the investment made and investigation of that icy world — having a likely internal ocean with conditions suitable for life — is a cool $5.2 billion.

For details on Europa Clipper and its cargo of unfit MOSFETs, go to my new SpaceNews story:

“End-run around radiation – The saga and surprise vulnerabilities of Europa Clipper” at:

https://spacenews.com/end-run-around-radiation-the-saga-and-surprise-vulnerabilities-of-europa-clipper/