# The Mission To Europa



## mac1 (Apr 11, 2004)

(no not the goth band!!??!!  )


Anybody know what happened to the Europa missions. Way back in 1999, NASA made plans to send a probe to Europa to see for sure if there was water (or a liquid substane) underneath its permafrost, the mission was sceduled for 2003, but (to my knowledge anyway) it never happened. At one stage I even remember reading an article about how they weren't going to go to Pluto untill 2020 because Europe was the "MAIN PRIORITY". They did send Galileo on a two year extended mission to observe it, but it is far from the originally planned Europa lander. Does anyone know if NASA have any merely been delayed, or has the Europa lander mission actually been called off?


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 11, 2004)

Do you mean the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, by any cance? 

 JIMO is actually still in development - there's a good article about what's going on at the moment  here , which is dated from February this year.


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## mac1 (Apr 12, 2004)

I said:
			
		

> Do you mean the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, by any cance?
> 
> JIMO is actually still in development - there's a good article about what's going on at the moment here , which is dated from February this year.


Superb, just a 12 year delay. It's good to know they are still working on it, as it is; in my opinion; one of the most facinating space exploration missions ever to be concieved. The idea of having a submersival on another world sending back data to earth is quite enchanting. 

Out of curiosity, I did have a good look for plans to send a probe to Pluto, apparently NASA are still aiming for the Kuiper belt by 2022.


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 12, 2004)

The trouble is, a lot of it all is in development - NASA had originally planned to send a Pluto Express (or something like that) out _last year_. But they of course scrapped it.

 The big problem is the ISS - the International Space Station. The US has spent long enough cutting the whole project down, and plans to then dump the whole thing on an international consortium. And until that time, NASA keeps cutting down on it's exploration projects.

 Cassini will enter the orbit of Saturn this year, and launch a plantary probe onto mysterious Titan after Christmas. But this is the last of the big expensive inter-planetary missions. There is nothing else to be launched apparently for at least a decade. And anything that will be launched will likely have severe budget pressures that the older systems never had. 

 It's an incredible shame when you consider what immense things the interplanetary craft have done for our understanding of ourselves, the solar system, and our place in the universe. But while NASA is all screwed up on itself, maybe it's finally time for other nations to take the slack. 

 ESA for one could do with bucking it's ideas up - but even then, the European powers seem to resent paying for space missions, and have really trimmed back on the ESA missions, too. Seems no one wants to pay for space exploration these days. It's a bit mad, really. 

  I'm sure there's room for the commercial exploration of space - if done right.


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