Abstract
NASA’s planned Europa Clipper mission seeks to assess the habitability of Jupiter’s moon Europa, which exhibits strong evidence of an ocean of liquid water underneath its icy crust. The sheer number of unique instruments, all of which require quiescent environments in order to operate, compounded with Jupiter’s distance from the Sun and Earth, makes this planned mission challenging and resource-constrained. High-fidelity, mission-level simulations that model the spacecraft, ground, and environment from launch to end of mission with a given trajectory and mission plan have been employed early in the project life cycle to better understand the interactions between various components of the mission and how design changes impact the entire system. These simulations have already resulted in tangible benefits to the project by providing vital input to key spacecraft trades, assessing impacts to operability, and quantifying how well the scientific objectives of the mission can be achieved. Improvements to simulation performance and to the process by which information defining the system is gathered and built into models used by simulations have the potential to further expand the scope of their use on Europa Clipper and future missions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Wissler, S., Maldague, P. F., Rocca, J., & Seybold, C. (2006). Deep impact sequence planning using multi-mission adaptable planning tools with integrated spacecraft models. In AIAA 9th International Conference on Space Operations (SpaceOps). Rome, Italy. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2006-5869.
Mitchell, A., et al. (2004). MAPGEN: Mixed-initiative planning and scheduling for the mars exploration rover mission. IEEE Intelligent Systems [Online Journal], 19(1), 8–12.
McKinnon, W. B., Pappalardo, R. T., & Khurana, K. K. (2009). Europa: Perspectives on an ocean world. In R. T. Pappalardo, et al. (Eds.), Europa (pp. 697–710). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Pappalardo, R. T., et al. (2015, September). Science objectives for the Europa Clipper mission concept: Investigating the potential habitability of Europa. In European Planetary Science Congress (Vol. 10). EPSC2015-156, Nantes, France.
Buffington, B., Campagnola, S., & Petropoulos, A. (2012). Europa multiple-flyby trajectory design. In AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference. Minneapolis, MN, August 13–16, 2012. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2012-5069.
Lam, T., Buffington, B., Campagnola, S., Scott, C., & Ozimek, M. (2018). A robust mission Tour for NASA’s planned Europa Clipper mission. In 2018 Space Flight Mechanics Meeting, AIAA SciTech Forum. Kissimmee, FL, January 8–12, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2018-0202.
Acton, C. H. (1996). Ancillary data services of NASA’s navigation and ancillary information facility. Planetary and Space Science, 44(1), 65–70.
Garrett, H. B., Martinez-Sierra, L. M., & Evans, R. (2015, October). Updating the Jovian proton radiation environment. Pasadena, CA: JPL Publication 15-9, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Maldague, P. F., Wissler, S., Lenda, M., & Finnerty, D. (2014). APGEN scheduling: 15 years of experience in planning automation. In AIAA 13th International Conference on Space Operations (SpaceOps). Pasadena, CA, May 5–9, 2014. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2014-1809.
Cole, B., & Dinkel, K. (2016). Multidisciplinary model transformation through simplified intermediate representations. In IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT, March 5–12, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1109/aero.2016.7500656.
Acton, C., Bachman, N., Semenov, B., & Wright, E. (2018). A look toward the future in the handling of space science mission geometry. Planetary and Space Science, 150, 9–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2017.02.013.
Semenov, B. V. (2018). WebGeocalc and cosmographia: Modern tools to access OPS SPICE data. In AIAA 15th International Conference on Space Operations (SpaceOps). Marseille, France. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2018-2366.
Oaida, B., Lewis, K., Ferguson, E., Day, J., & McCoy, K. (2018). A statistical approach to payload energy management for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. In IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT, March 3–10, 2018.
Signorelli, J., Bindschadler, D. L., Schimmels, K. A., & Huh, S. M. (2018). Operability engineering for the Europa Clipper mission: Formulation phase results and lessons. In AIAA 15th International Conference on Space Operations (SpaceOps). Marseille, France. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2018-2629.
Buffington, B., et al. (2017). Evolution of trajectory design requirements on NASA’s planned Europa Clipper mission. In 68th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), IAC-17-C1.7.8. Adelaide, Australia, September 25–29, 2017.
Susca, S., Jones-Wilson, L. L., & Oaida, B. V. (2017). A framework for writing measurement requirements and its application to the planned Europa mission. In IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT, March 4–11, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1109/aero.2017.7943689.
McCoy, K., et al. (2018). Assessing the science robustness of the Europa Clipper mission: Science sensitivity model. In IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT, March 3–10, 2018.
Lawler, C. R., Wissler, S. S., Kulkarni, T., Ferguson E. W., & Maldague P. F. (2018). Europa lander concept: High fidelity system modeling informing flight system and concept of operations years before launch. In AIAA 15th International Conference on Space Operations (SpaceOps), Marseille, France. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2018-2413.
Bayer, T. J., et al. (2012). Model based systems engineering on the Europa mission concept study. In IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT, March 3–10, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1109/aero.2012.6187337.
Dubos, G. F., Coren, D. P., Kerzhner A., Chung, S. H., & Castet, J. (2016). Modeling of the flight system design in the early formulation of the Europa project. In IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, March 5–12, 2016.
Ferguson, E. W., Wissler, S. S., Bradley, B. K., Maldague, P. F., Ludwinski, J. M., & Lawler, C. R. (2018). Improving spacecraft design and operability for Europa Clipper through high-fidelity, mission-level modeling and simulation. In AIAA 15th International Conference on Space Operations (SpaceOps). Marseille, France. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2018-2469.
Acknowledgements
The material in this work originates from a paper presented at the SpaceOps 2018 conference in Marseille, France [21]. This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The authors would like to thank Laureano Cangahuala, Nathan Strange, Kelli McCoy, and Dave Mohr for taking the time to provide a thorough technical review of this paper. Also, a special thanks to Adam Roberts for providing additional feedback on grammar and style.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ferguson, E.W., Wissler, S.S., Bradley, B.K., Maldague, P.F., Ludwinski, J.M., Lawler, C.R. (2019). The Power of High-Fidelity, Mission-Level Modeling and Simulation to Influence Spacecraft Design and Operability for Europa Clipper. In: Pasquier, H., Cruzen, C., Schmidhuber, M., Lee, Y. (eds) Space Operations: Inspiring Humankind's Future. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11536-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11536-4_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11535-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11536-4
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)