Congress says NASA must not only go to Europa, but land there

Congress has agreed to fund NASA for the fiscal year 2016 with an amount of $1.63 billion for planetary science, of which $175 million is designated for the Europa mission. There is a catch to the new legislation however: NASA not only has to go to Jupiter’s icy moon, but it must land there by 2022.

The overall budget for NASA in 2016 is $19.2 billion, which is approximately $700 million more than President Obama requested.

“This number, this year, is the largest vote of confidence that Congress has ever given NASA,” Texas Congressman John Culberson, who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the space agency, said. “There’s enough money to do everything on their plate.”

None of NASA’s activities have a higher priority than Europa, Jupiter’s ice-encrusted moon. Culberson has the support of the scientific community, which cited in a recent survey that a Europa orbiter is one of its utmost concerns. It is believed that sampling the icy surface of Europa and landing near a vent close to its oceans below would offer the best possibility into discovering life elsewhere.

“Until now Europa has had no advocate,” Culberson said. “NASA headquarters was prepared to let the Europa mission die. But I have always believed there is life on other worlds, and I have wanted to have a hand in helping to discover life on other worlds.”

NASA’s administrator, Charles Bolden, accepted the Europa mission, but reluctantly. In 2013 and 2014, NASA did not ask for Europa funding at all and Culberson gave it more than $120 million. In its 2015 budget request, NASA finally complied and created a Europa program and the president called for $15 million to begin preliminary studies, but Culberson gave $100 million. And for 2016, NASA requested $30 million and got nearly six times that.

And now that mission to Europa has been accepted by NASA, it disputes with Congress in its demand for a lander.

“My scientific community, the people who do mission planning, say we need to go and do a little research with the first mission to Europa to determine whether that’s a place we want to send a lander,” Bolden said. “That’s the point of our big disagreement with Congressman Culberson right now. He wants a multibillion dollar Europa mission that has a lander on the first flight and everything. Our belief is that that is imprudent from a scientific perspective.”

But Culberson has not backed down. This year alone, he has twice made weekend visits to the California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory to meet with scientists and engineers who have successfully landed probes safely on Mars. They have willingly told him that they can do the same on Europa although it is a frigid, radiation flooded surface that may be difficult to land on. Their plan includes operating a “clipper” that would make dozens of flybys of Europa before identifying the best location for a lander to surface.

The budget proposed by Congress is reflected in Culberson’s meetings with the scientists and what they stated is necessary to get the plan going. And to make sure NASA received the message, he wrote the requirement right into the law.

Source: Ars Technica