Design of the Europa Jupiter System Mission
- Paper number
IAC-08.C1.6.3
- Author
Dr. Arnaud Boutonnet, European Space Agency (ESA), Germany
- Coauthor
Dr. Paolo de Pascale, GMV S.A. at ESA/ESOC, Germany
- Coauthor
Dr. Elisabet Canalias, Germany
- Year
2008
- Abstract
The paper details the design of a mission to Europa. A dual spacecraft system is foreseen as baseline: In addition to the Europa orbiter, a relay spacecraft in jovicentric orbit will relay the Europa orbiter data back to Earth. This mission shall be launched with one Soyuz-Fregat 2.1b from Kourou. A launch in 2020 was baselined and further optimized to maximize the mass at Jupiter arrival. This process gives as output the initial conditions for the planetary phase. The Jupiter Orbit Insertion (JOI) is preceded by a swing-by at the moon Io, significantly reducing the JOI size. Design of the JOI sequence, selection of the initial post-JOI orbit, selection of the next moon to encounter and of the incoming infinite velocity followed from an extensive trade-off. The radiation dose and the stability of the initial highly eccentric orbit were also taken into account in the trade-off. Then follows the design of the Jupiter tours, whereby each spacecraft is led individually to its target orbit. The orbiter shall go into a 200 km polar Europa orbit, the relay spacecraft into an eccentric orbit at low inclination, with a perijove of 11 Jupiter radii and a 3:1 synchronicity with Europa (communication constraints with the orbiter). Both spacecraft follow a sequence of resonant Ganymede swingbys to lower the apojove and reduce the inclination. The choice of the sequence as well as the B-plane parameters is subject to optimization. Finally starts the Galilean moons tour: the paper only analyses the orbiter tour because of its higher complexity (greater number of swingbys involved). The number of solutions is nearly unlimited. A tool based on the Tisserand graph (Period-perijove plot) was developed. A fast algorithm solves the phasing problem leading to a discrete number of solutions at each swingby. Then a branching and pruning algorithm selects at each step the most promising solutions. Doing that, solutions are traded off, comparing radiation dose and propellant consumption. Different sequences of Europa-Ganymede-Callisto sequences are compared, involving up to 10 swing-bys in the tour. The complex tours design were first designed via the Tisserand graph, and then improved via a local optimization software. Dividing the full task of a mission to Europa into smaller global optimisation sub-problems has led more easily to solutions minimizing the fuel consumption while keeping a low level of radiations.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-08.C1.6.3.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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