Europa is a premier target for advancing both planetary science and astrobiology, as well as for opening a new window into the burgeoning field of comparative oceanography. The potentially habitable subsurface ocean of Europa may harbor life, and the globally young and comparatively thin ice shell of Europa may contain biosignatures that are readily accessible to a surface lander. Europa’s icy shell also offers the opportunity to study tectonics and geologic cycles across a range of mechanisms and compositions. Here we detail the goals and mission architecture of the Europa Lander mission concept, as developed from 2015 through 2020. The science was developed by the 2016 Europa Lander Science Definition Team (SDT), and the mission architecture was developed by the preproject engineering team, in close collaboration with the SDT. In 2017 and 2018, the mission concept passed its mission concept review and delta-mission concept review, respectively. Since that time, the preproject has been advancing the technologies, and developing the hardware and software, needed to retire risks associated with technology, science, cost, and schedule.
Relatively recent discoveries have shown that large quantities of water can be found on moons of some of the planets among the gas giants in our solar system. Robotic mobility systems can study the varied geology and origins of these bodies if they are able to navigate the complex terrains of ocean worlds. The topographical features of ocean worlds present a unique combination of challenges for mobility. These include cryogenic ice, penitentes, salt evaporites, chaotic regions, and regolith with uncertain shear and sinkage properties. Uncertainty in both terrain properties and geometry motivates design of a platform that is mobile within a large range of obstacle geometries and terrain properties. This article reports on a research effort to study the requirements and numerically optimize the kinematic parameters of the rover to satisfy these goals. The platforms selected in the process were further verified via simulation. A simulation and analysis of grousers generated suitable designs for interaction with similar ledges and rough terrain. From this analysis, a prototype was developed and tested to meet the wide range of topography and terramechanics conditions expected on these bodies.
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