NASA - Europa Clipper updates and discussion

[deadman1204]

So no post-launch press conference whatsoever. For a multibillion dollar flagship mission. Jesus, even ESA held a presser after launch of its much cheaper Hera spacecraft and I used to think they didn't know how to communicate to taxpayers.

What's the health of the spacecraft? Was it sent on a good trajectory? Nothing. All we get is a blog post saying the solar panels have deployed.

wouldn't that be mainly performative? A press conference a couple days afterwards once everything as been deployed and setup up would be more meaningful.

[jimvela]

... even ESA held a presser after launch of its much cheaper Hera spacecraft and I used to think they didn't know how to communicate to taxpayers.

wouldn't that be mainly performative? A press conference a couple days afterwards once everything as been deployed and setup up would be more meaningful.

Communicating with your funding constituency is indeed performative to some extent, but it's still necessary.
A simple update release stating the state of the mission and the upcoming steps would be great.

As it is, we're left with knowledge that the solar arrays deployed and a chaotic and disorganized net audio showing that the prop system commissioning may have been off-nominal, but they at least spun up to the barbecue roll.

The longer this goes without some news, the more I suspect something isn't right with the early ops phase of the mission.

[mn]

... even ESA held a presser after launch of its much cheaper Hera spacecraft and I used to think they didn't know how to communicate to taxpayers.

wouldn't that be mainly performative? A press conference a couple days afterwards once everything as been deployed and setup up would be more meaningful.

Communicating with your funding constituency is indeed performative to some extent, but it's still necessary.
A simple update release stating the state of the mission and the upcoming steps would be great.

As it is, we're left with knowledge that the solar arrays deployed and a chaotic and disorganized net audio showing that the prop system commissioning may have been off-nominal, but they at least spun up to the barbecue roll.

The longer this goes without some news, the more I suspect something isn't right with the early ops phase of the mission.

And this raises another issue: So lets say there is actually an issue they are working on. I can perfectly understand the human nature of trying to say nothing until you got the issue under control. I would do the same thing, but I'm not NASA. I would expect NASA to be bigger than that. If they feel they need to hide bad news, that in itself shows a problem with NASA IMHO.

Of course the idea that there is a problem is obviously all speculation.

[DaveS]

As it is, we're left with knowledge that the solar arrays deployed and a chaotic and disorganized net audio showing that the prop system commissioning may have been off-nominal, but they at least spun up to the barbecue roll.

This is a bit of misunderstanding as the thermal roll ("barbecue roll") was given to the spacecraft by the FH upper stage prior to separation. What we didn't hear happen was the slew to sun-pointing attitude to recharge the batteries once the solar arrays had been deployed.

[Blackstar]

JPL has not produced a mission update or tweeted in 24 hours.

[Targeteer]

So no post-launch press conference whatsoever. For a multibillion dollar flagship mission. Jesus, even ESA held a presser after launch of its much cheaper Hera spacecraft and I used to think they didn't know how to communicate to taxpayers.

What's the health of the spacecraft? Was it sent on a good trajectory? Nothing. All we get is a blog post saying the solar panels have deployed.

PAO is doing everything possible to stop all release of information to the US public, except on blogs or via teleconferences with no video where endless platitudes replace details which then must be individually extracted by specific questions.  This decision has to be supported at the highest levels of the agency.  Only Congress can force a change, but they probably will not.

[LouScheffer]

I'm getting extremely bad vibes about this.   I'm afraid the data, interpreted in the obvious way, would mean the mission is lost.   This would result in instant recriminations, making it even harder, if still possible, to recover the mission.  So until they've tried everything humanly possible, they are deferring the announcement.

I've never hoped so hard in my life that I am wrong.

[Blackstar]

Receiving telemetry from Europa Clipper.

[Targeteer]

In a small victory, they added Europa Clipper to Eyes on the Solar System... https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/sc_europa_clipper   I tweeted the Europa Clipper X account and asked when NASA will start providing actual mission updates.  My expectations of a response and actual updates is almost non existent.

[LouScheffer]

Receiving telemetry from Europa Clipper.

Unfortunately I don't think this tells us much.   The solar arrays are sized for Jupiter at 5 AU, so near Earth they are 25 times bigger than needed.  So as long as they are not completely pointed away from the sun Clipper will be power positive.   Likewise when they are so close to Earth, any orientation will do for the antennas.  So lack of orientation control can't be ruled out.

The flip side is that being power positive gives JPL time to troubleshoot.

[Jim]

PAO is doing everything possible to stop all release of information to the US public, except on blogs or via teleconferences with no video where endless platitudes replace details which then must be individually extracted by specific questions.  This decision has to be supported at the highest levels of the agency.  Only Congress can force a change, but they probably will not.

just stop with the conspiracy theories.

[Targeteer]

PAO is doing everything possible to stop all release of information to the US public, except on blogs or via teleconferences with no video where endless platitudes replace details which then must be individually extracted by specific questions.  This decision has to be supported at the highest levels of the agency.  Only Congress can force a change, but they probably will not.

just stop with the conspiracy theories.

I know better than to challenge Jim but I stand by this statement--NASA is moving towards using only "blogs or teleconferences with no video where endless platitudes replace details which then must be individually extracted by specific questions"

[jcm]

PAO is doing everything possible to stop all release of information to the US public, except on blogs or via teleconferences with no video where endless platitudes replace details which then must be individually extracted by specific questions.  This decision has to be supported at the highest levels of the agency.  Only Congress can force a change, but they probably will not.

just stop with the conspiracy theories.

I know better than to challenge Jim but I stand by this statement--NASA is moving towards using only "blogs or teleconferences with no video where endless platitudes replace details which then must be individually extracted by specific questions"

There has clearly been a shift to release less technical information. It's very disappointing.

[Hyperborealis]

Fwiw, @EuropaClipper has put a couple tweets just now, with no sense of concern. Positive sign anyway.

[Blackstar]

Fwiw, @EuropaClipper has put a couple tweets just now, with no sense of concern. Positive sign anyway.

That's more positive.

[deltaV]

I'm getting extremely bad vibes about this.   I'm afraid the data, interpreted in the obvious way, would mean the mission is lost.   This would result in instant recriminations, making it even harder, if still possible, to recover the mission.  So until they've tried everything humanly possible, they are deferring the announcement.

I've never hoped so hard in my life that I am wrong.

Why do you think something is wrong? The next few years are expected to be pretty boring so we shouldn't expect frequent updates.

[ehb]

I'm getting extremely bad vibes about this.   I'm afraid the data, interpreted in the obvious way, would mean the mission is lost.   This would result in instant recriminations, making it even harder, if still possible, to recover the mission.  So until they've tried everything humanly possible, they are deferring the announcement.

I've never hoped so hard in my life that I am wrong.

Why do you think something is wrong? The next few years are expected to be pretty boring so we shouldn't expect frequent updates.

For me, It seems to be hard to find information. There seemed to be some concerns during the post-launch loop (stuck valves? sorry, didn't listen to it again). No post-launch press conference. Aren't there typically initial checkout steps? How about an "all systems functioning as expected" message, or "we will do initial checkouts over the next XX days and provide an update at that time." The best timeline I found was here https://europa.nasa.gov/mission/timeline/ & it is basically empty.
This is a multi-billion $ taxpayer funded mission.

[redliox]

If anything I hope to hear about the magnetometer boom and REASON deployment.  JUICE deployed its counterparts fairly early if I recall.

[sdsds]

Just for the record Clipper is visible from Madrid: https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

SPACECRAFT NAME: Europa Clipper
RANGE: 1.89 million km
ROUND-TRIP LIGHT TIME: 12.591 sec
ANTENNA NAME: DSS 55
AZIMUTH: 66 deg
ELEVATION: 18 deg
WIND SPEED: 13 km/hr

UP SIGNAL
FREQUENCY BAND: X
POWER TRANSMITTED: 0.2 kW

DOWN SIGNAL
FREQUENCY BAND: X
DATA RATE: 50.00 kb/sec
POWER RECEIVED: -120 dBm
(1.0 x 10-18 kW)

[jimvela]

Just for the record Clipper is visible from Madrid: https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Yes, but as noted up thread- this close to the sun with those giant solar arrays, you could be in serious trouble and still be power positive.  This close to the earth, Clipper should also be able to close the link at the relatively low 50Kbps downlink rate without too much effort.

It's really remarkable how little status is being provided for such an important mission.