PLANETARY EXPLORATION NEWSLETTER - SPECIAL EDITION
Volume 7, Number 16 (April 9, 2013)

PEN Website: http://planetarynews.org
Editor: Mark V. Sykes
Co-Editors: Melissa Lane, Susan Benecchi
Email: pen_editor at psi.edu

o---------------------------SPECIAL EDITION---------------------------o

INSTRUMENT TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE EUROPA CLIPPER 
MISSION CONCEPT

James L. Green, Director, Planetary Science Division, NASA HQ

Congress recently passed a FY13 budget for NASA that includes funding 
to continue pre-formulation and formulation activities for a Europa 
mission.  As part of this effort NASA plans to release an amendment to 
ROSES 2013 describing a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) for instrument 
technology development in support of the Europa Clipper mission 
concept.  The goal of this call is to mature and reduce the technical 
risk of instruments for the Europa Clipper mission to the point where 
they may be proposed in response to a possible future announcement of 
flight opportunity without additional extensive technology development. 
Awarding the funds before the end of FY13 will require an extremely 
aggressive schedule. To that end, NASA plans to release the NRA no 
later than April 30; proposals will be due 45 days after the release 
of the NRA.

The Europa Clipper strawman payload includes an Ice Penetrating Radar 
(IPR), a Shortwave Infrared Spectrometer (SWIRS), a Topographic Imager 
(TI), a mass spectrometer (MS), and a magnetometer. The IPR, SWIRS, TI, 
and MS have been identified as needing significant early development to 
enable them to operate in the Europan environment, and NASA Plans to 
target those instruments with this funding opportunity. While other 
instruments may be proposed, selection preference will be given to 
proposed instruments in these four categories. US proposers to the 
recent JUICE AO are especially encouraged to consider proposing to ICEE 
if their JUICE instrument concepts are applicable to the Europa Clipper 
mission.


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