Author Topic: Proposed Europa Missions  (Read 641084 times)

Offline metaphor

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #500 on: 10/09/2014 04:55 pm »
I've heard that if one wanted to just have a spacecraft flyby Europa many times with no instruments, the cost would be about $1B.   If you want to do great science, too, about double that price

If you add instruments, you're adding mass to the payload, plus additional power/thermal/communications requirements, so that makes the rest of the spacecraft cost more.  So the cost of the instruments themselves would not be equal to the difference in cost between a full-science Europa flyby mission and a Europa flyby mission with no instruments.  (edit--misread that post, I agree with your point)

According to this source(pdf), Cassini's scientific instrument cost was $200 million out of a $1.4 billion total spacecraft development budget.
« Last Edit: 10/09/2014 05:00 pm by metaphor »

Offline Jim

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #501 on: 10/09/2014 05:22 pm »


According to this source(pdf), Cassini's scientific instrument cost was $200 million out of a $1.4 billion total spacecraft development budget.

$400M for the TIV, so 1/5 of the spacecraft cost.

Offline ncb1397

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #502 on: 10/09/2014 05:30 pm »
I don't recall probes in the '60s and '70s opting for numerous out-of-the-way gravity assists, so I see them for what they are: improvising. 
You cannot simply throw a large launch vehicle at every mission. That's expensive. That is money better spent on instruments.

Has anyone proposed doing something like using an HLV for every mission?

Instruments are usually a small portion of a mission's budget.


Launch vehicle size, and cost, has been a factor in the selection and non-selection of many planetary missions over the years. Look at Voyager-Mars as the classic example. Of course, size of the spacecraft (and cost) usually tracks with size of the rocket, but as a general rule, planetary missions have sought to keep the launch vehicle size as small as possible and mission designers are not automatically given the option of the largest rocket (there's a reason why Curiosity and Juno did not launch on Delta IVs, for instance).

I've heard it argued here that Curiosity maxes out NASA's EDL technology for downmass(i.e. they can't make the parachutes any bigger). If this is the case, more upmass wouldn't enable much more rover. This doesn't apply to Europa Clipper. Delta IVs are generally never used for NASA missions, partly due to not being a NASA certified launch vehicle. For whatever reason, ULA/Boeing/Lockheed generally push Atlas over Delta for NASA/commercial.


Instruments are usually a small portion of a mission's budget. For instance, from memory, I think MSL was 2.5 billion total cost and the instruments were ~100 million total.

Wrong.  They are not a small portion.  A lander is the wrong example.  MSL had 3 additional pieces of hardware that other spacecraft don't have: aeroshell, descent stage, and rover.


Also, the Curiosity instrument suite cost more than that. I think the cost was more like $170-$190 million. After all, the cost of the instrument suite for Mars 2020--not including the sample cacher--is over $130 million.

If a lander is a wrong example, maybe JIMO would be a better example given that it was also a Jupiter moon mission. It includes multiple mission elements assembled in orbit via multiple launches, a nuclear reactor, electric drive, massive radiators, etc. All of that is logistics and is just as complicated as MSL if not more so.

Anyways, the constraint for a Jupiter moon mission needs to be the ability to equip a full power, full scale ground penetrating radar. I'm not sure it would be hugely expensive, but it will be power hungry and heavy. What is going on below the surface is the whole point after all.

As far as budget for Mars 2020:
Quote
The 19-member SDT, headed by Brown University geologist Jack Mustard, has been told NASA will have about $80 million for rover science instruments, Meyer said, adding that at least one and possibly two more instruments, with a total value of about $20 million, also should be coming from participating international or other partners.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/34035nasa-outlines-budget-scope-for-next-mars-rover-in-2020

MSL budget was about what I said, but ended up significantly over budget resulting in the ~170 million.

Quote
Although Curiosity’s initial budget for science instruments was $85 million in 2004 dollars, the agency ended up spending roughly twice that amount.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/34035nasa-outlines-budget-scope-for-next-mars-rover-in-2020

Still, we are talking about 7% of the mission cost even after going over-budget(more so than the mission overall) which some people here have pointed out might be on the low end of the spectrum given it is a lander. I'm having a bit of trouble finding cost figures for the instruments on Cassini, but the linked page below says the UVIS instrument cost 12.5 million and is one of 12 while the whole mission cost 3.3 billion. Extrapolating this towards all twelve would yield 150 million out of 3.3 billion or 4.5%. I would characterize this as a small portion. Anyone with better numbers and more expert google-fu, feel free to post.

http://lasp.colorado.edu/cassini/education/faqs.htm

p.s. Yes, I see someone posted numbers above me. I am just going to push the button anyways.


Offline ncb1397

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #503 on: 10/09/2014 05:44 pm »


According to this source(pdf), Cassini's scientific instrument cost was $200 million out of a $1.4 billion total spacecraft development budget.

$400M for the TIV, so 1/5 of the spacecraft cost.

You don't just look at spacecraft cost, you look at mission cost. This properly accounts for shorter missions on SLS vs Atlas. You don't count the Huygen's probe as an instrument(I assume this is what you mean by "TIV"). It is an instrumented lander. If the 200 million is right, it is 200 million out of 3.3 billion or 6%.

Offline Jim

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #504 on: 10/09/2014 05:51 pm »


According to this source(pdf), Cassini's scientific instrument cost was $200 million out of a $1.4 billion total spacecraft development budget.

$400M for the TIV, so 1/5 of the spacecraft cost.

You don't just look at spacecraft cost, you look at mission cost. This properly accounts for shorter missions on SLS vs Atlas. You don't count the Huygen's probe as an instrument(I assume this is what you mean by "TIV"). It is an instrumented lander. If the 200 million is right, it is 200 million out of 3.3 billion or 6%.

TIV is Titan IV.  $1.4B total mission cost - $400M LV = $1B spacecraft.  Instruments are 1/5 of it.

Offline ncb1397

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #505 on: 10/09/2014 06:13 pm »


According to this source(pdf), Cassini's scientific instrument cost was $200 million out of a $1.4 billion total spacecraft development budget.

$400M for the TIV, so 1/5 of the spacecraft cost.

You don't just look at spacecraft cost, you look at mission cost. This properly accounts for shorter missions on SLS vs Atlas. You don't count the Huygen's probe as an instrument(I assume this is what you mean by "TIV"). It is an instrumented lander. If the 200 million is right, it is 200 million out of 3.3 billion or 6%.

TIV is Titan IV.  $1.4B total mission cost - $400M LV = $1B spacecraft.  Instruments are 1/5 of it.

Cassini-Huygens was a lot more expensive than that:

Quote
The total cost of this scientific exploration mission is about US$3.26 billion, including $1.4 billion for pre-launch development, $704 million for mission operations, $54 million for tracking and $422 million for the launch vehicle. The United States contributed $2.6 billion (80%), the ESA $500 million (15%), and the ASI $160 million (5%).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens

Your 1.4 Billion is only "pre-launch development".

Offline Jim

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #506 on: 10/09/2014 06:23 pm »


Your 1.4 Billion is only "pre-launch development".

So 1/7 of the spacecraft, which is still a sizable portion.

Offline ncb1397

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #507 on: 10/09/2014 06:40 pm »


Your 1.4 Billion is only "pre-launch development".

So 1/7 of the spacecraft, which is still a sizable portion.


Instruments are usually a small portion of a mission's budget. For instance, from memory, I think MSL was 2.5 billion total cost and the instruments were ~100 million total.

Wrong.  They are not a small portion.  A lander is the wrong example.  MSL had 3 additional pieces of hardware that other spacecraft don't have: aeroshell, descent stage, and rover.

Now calculating the "portion" to be the percentage of the spacecraft vs the percentage of the mission is moving the goal post. 200 million is ~1/16th of 3.3 billion. Still, let's say a big LV costs 1 billion(no idea how much SLS costs). I still haven't heard what the instrument developers would spend 1 billion on in the same mass and power constraints(R&D for science instrument optimization?). No other probes have ever spent this amount of money on instrumentation.

Offline veblen

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #508 on: 10/09/2014 07:54 pm »
$422M in 1997 for Cassini TitanIV-Centaur launch vehicle. $625M today with inflation factored in. How much more expensive for SLS, add another $375M =$1B? AtlasV 541 $226M, good price but availability?

Offline Jim

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #509 on: 10/09/2014 08:10 pm »

Now calculating the "portion" to be the percentage of the spacecraft vs the percentage of the mission is moving the goal post.

Yes, it is.  That is why is it part of the spacecraft.  Mission operations costs are mainly driven by time on station and not during cruise.  Mission extensions increase mission costs.  Cassini operations are around $80m per year. 
« Last Edit: 10/09/2014 08:19 pm by Jim »

Offline Jim

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #510 on: 10/09/2014 08:13 pm »

You don't just look at spacecraft cost, you look at mission cost. This properly accounts for shorter missions on SLS vs Atlas. You don't count the Huygen's probe as an instrument(I assume this is what you mean by "TIV"). It is an instrumented lander.

yes, Huygen's probe would be counted as an instrument/payload of the spacecraft.

Offline redliox

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #511 on: 10/09/2014 08:31 pm »
$422M in 1997 for Cassini TitanIV-Centaur launch vehicle. $625M today with inflation factored in. How much more expensive for SLS, add another $375M =$1B? AtlasV 541 $226M, good price but availability?

Good point.  The Atlas V is supposed to have enough spare Russian engines to last a few years, but I would presume by the early 2020s that supply would be at an end.  It's a good rocket but they will eventually need to upgrade or replace it.

I wonder how a Falcon Heavy compares; if SLS is "too fantastic" and the Atlas too underpowered for a direct flight, could an FH deliver something to Jupiter with a single Earth fly-by? 
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Offline redliox

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #512 on: 10/09/2014 08:59 pm »
Another update for Europa: Cubesat proposals!
http://www.astrowatch.net/2014/10/jet-propulsion-laboratory-selects.html

If they can get those things into Europa orbit, they could be a boost for gravity and magnetic mapping, but aside from what instruments could get crammed in, the question I ponder is how they'd be placed in orbit while, presumably, the long-lived mothership (Europa Clipper or otherwise) continues circling Jupiter.
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Offline Blackstar

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #513 on: 10/10/2014 12:44 am »
Another update for Europa: Cubesat proposals!
http://www.astrowatch.net/2014/10/jet-propulsion-laboratory-selects.html

If they can get those things into Europa orbit, they could be a boost for gravity and magnetic mapping, but aside from what instruments could get crammed in, the question I ponder is how they'd be placed in orbit while, presumably, the long-lived mothership (Europa Clipper or otherwise) continues circling Jupiter.

This stuff is tossed around as an idea, but I have real doubts about its practicality. Small spacecraft don't have any shielding. How long are they going to last in that radiation hell? And is that the best use of that limited mass?

Offline vjkane

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #514 on: 10/10/2014 01:06 am »


This stuff is tossed around as an idea, but I have real doubts about its practicality. Small spacecraft don't have any shielding. How long are they going to last in that radiation hell? And is that the best use of that limited mass?

Hey, if you think cubesats lack shielding, how about Draper Labs Europa chipsets?

I suspect that most of the cubesats are for short life, deploy from a shielded canister, missions.   The might be deployed for imaging specific areas a la Ranger or for gravity tracking a la Grail.  They are also likely to be battery powered. I suspect that any solar panels would have more volume than the cubesat

I think of these as short-lived deployed instruments.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #515 on: 10/10/2014 02:09 am »
Yeah, that is how they would have to be used--short life. But that itself is an issue. If you are a mission designer and somebody says "I want 10 kg of payload to operate some cubesats for about 1 hour of data and there is high risk that they will fail immediately," will you sit there and say "Go on..." or will you kick that person out of your office?

Put more diplomatically, are short-lived cubesats the proper way to spend mass? Is it a good idea to spend many years to send an instrument to Europa that is only going to last a very short time?

I have a friend who is currently a PI for a NASA-led planetary cubesat mission and they have noted that many of the things that keep cubesat costs down--short lives, high risk, limited testing--are things that you don't want on an expensive planetary mission.

So if you're going to use them, they better be really really worth it. Otherwise, that mass could probably be put to better use as shielding.

Offline metaphor

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #516 on: 10/10/2014 05:23 am »
I'm guessing with the cubesats they're just exploring all the options right now.  There's only so much you can spend $100 million dollars on for "studies".


I wonder how a Falcon Heavy compares; if SLS is "too fantastic" and the Atlas too underpowered for a direct flight, could an FH deliver something to Jupiter with a single Earth fly-by? 

The FH might be able to get about 6 tons to a 2-year solar orbit so the spacecraft could do an Earth flyby to Jupiter, like Juno.  But in that case you would need more fuel on the spacecraft itself for the needed deep-space maneuver of about 600 m/s delta-v.  Also, it wouldn't save much time compared to a VVE/VEE gravity assist transfer (about 5 years instead of 6).

Offline baldusi

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #517 on: 10/10/2014 11:29 am »

I'm guessing with the cubesats they're just exploring all the options right now.  There's only so much you can spend $100 million dollars on for "studies".


I wonder how a Falcon Heavy compares; if SLS is "too fantastic" and the Atlas too underpowered for a direct flight, could an FH deliver something to Jupiter with a single Earth fly-by? 

The FH might be able to get about 6 tons to a 2-year solar orbit so the spacecraft could do an Earth flyby to Jupiter, like Juno.  But in that case you would need more fuel on the spacecraft itself for the needed deep-space maneuver of about 600 m/s delta-v.  Also, it wouldn't save much time compared to a VVE/VEE gravity assist transfer (about 5 years instead of 6).
Adding fuel is cheap, and 1 year of operations might cost 80M (like Cassini). Which is about same the difference from F9 to FH. But this would need an Atlas V 551 otherwise, so if FH actually pans out, it could mean a cheaper and faster mission. Less than 3% overall i. The whole mission cost, but good enough none the less.
If FH does launches by 2015, it should be able to be certified by PDR, at least. If this delays a bit more, it might be certifiable by SDR, in fact.

Offline robertross

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #518 on: 10/10/2014 01:17 pm »
Yeah, that is how they would have to be used--short life. But that itself is an issue. If you are a mission designer and somebody says "I want 10 kg of payload to operate some cubesats for about 1 hour of data and there is high risk that they will fail immediately," will you sit there and say "Go on..." or will you kick that person out of your office?

Put more diplomatically, are short-lived cubesats the proper way to spend mass? Is it a good idea to spend many years to send an instrument to Europa that is only going to last a very short time?

I have a friend who is currently a PI for a NASA-led planetary cubesat mission and they have noted that many of the things that keep cubesat costs down--short lives, high risk, limited testing--are things that you don't want on an expensive planetary mission.

So if you're going to use them, they better be really really worth it. Otherwise, that mass could probably be put to better use as shielding.

In retrospect to my original 'like' for this concept, I have to agree with your assessment. I could envision the mass being better spent on additional instruments on the spacecraft, or more fuel, than to have to give up mass & space for the Cubesats, deployment mechanism, and possibly the coms requirement.

My original 'like' was to help out the universities & students for these types of cutting edge missions.

Offline metaphor

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Re: Proposed Europa Missions
« Reply #519 on: 10/10/2014 07:04 pm »
If the Europa Clipper does launch on the SLS, which version would it use?  Block 1 with the ICPS or Block 1B with the exploration upper stage?  Which version did the mission concept study consider?  By 2022 I'm guessing both would be available.

From my calculations the ICPS could get about 5 tons to Jupiter, and the exploration upper stage could get about 7-8 tons to Jupiter.  If using a third stage such as a solid kick stage, the payload for the EUS to Jupiter could be improved to about 12-15 tons.  I'm not sure if that much mass is really needed, but it's possible.

Atlas V payload to Venus is about 5 tons.

 

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