NASA Replaces Europa Clipper's ICEMAG
NASA Seeks New Options for Science Instrument on Europa Clipper, NASA
“The mission’s initial planned magnetometer, called Interior Characterization of Europa Using Magnetometry, or ICEMAG, will not fly with the spacecraft because of cost concerns. Instead, NASA will seek options for a simpler version of this instrument. ICEMAG currently is in its preliminary design phase, and its flight hardware hasn’t been built yet.”
ICEMAG Update on Europa Clipper, NASA
“During Phase A the entire Europa Clipper payload experienced significant resource growth, (including cost growth) due to accommodation challenges. This is expected due to system and environmental challenges for this mission, and typically confined to Phase A. However, during the System Requirements Review/Mission Definition Review and at the subsequent KDP B gate review concerns were raised that further growth was probable. This was a concern for NASA because of the guidance from the National Academies received directing NASA to keep Clipper cost in check due to the importance of program balance across all of planetary sciences.”
Catching rising costs early enough?
or testing the waters to see if anyone cares, and if no one does, kill the entire mission since it’s supporter, Rep. Culberson, is no longer in a position to protect it.
I doubt it. There is quite a lot of support for Europa Clipper among planetary scientists and a Europa mission was the second highest priority in the last decadal survey. Mr. Culberson’s support sped it up and the idea of flying a direct trajectory with a SLS launch may disappear, but I think the mission itself isn’t in danger.
Dr. Zurbuchen’s announcement cited “..a current cost estimate from the ICEMAG PI of $45.6M for Phases A-D. This latest cost estimate is $8.3M above the cost trigger set in January 2019 and $16M above the original cost trigger set in February 2017. Altogether this represents a cost approximately three times the cost estimate presented in the original ICEMAG proposal.
The level of cost growth on ICEMAG is not acceptable, and NASA considers the investigation to possess significant potential for additional cost growth.”
I can’t disagree with that. I’m not sure cost triggers are the right approach (if applied as a percentage, as they often are, it lets the big ticket items get away with quite a bit at the expense of the lower cost subsystems.) But a factor of three over the proposed cost isn’t viable. Dr. Zurbuchen did need to do something. And he’s talking about replacing ICEMAG with a facility instrument to do essentially the same job, as well as retaining the ICEMAG science team. To me, that doesn’t sound like a trial balloon about canceling the mission.
That is good as it sounds like it will be one of the more interesting missions. I suspect subsurface water worlds like Europe are common throughout the Solar System. Understanding Europe will probably tell us more about how common life is in the Galaxy then Mars. It might even be stable enough to have complex life, which would be fantastic.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is a “facility instrument”? Is it a deign that has already been built, and can be adapted to suit the mission? Presumably at the expense of some compromises on accuracy, weight, and/or power, etc?
No, or at least not necessarily. A facility instrument is a contrast to the science investigations providing the instruments for Clipper (and most instruments on large NASA missions.)
For the existing instruments, NASA simply said what science and what sort of measurements they wanted the mission to do. They gave an example of the sorts of instruments and capabilities which could do that, but said other implementations would also be fine. Then called for proposals for teams to provide instruments, operate them and analyze the results. NASA then selected the best set of proposals to accomplish the mission.
With a facility instrument, NASA specifies exactly what instrument they want and are pretty specific on the capabilities and on what resources available. There isn’t much place for the instrument provider to say, in the case of a magnetometer, that 0.01 rather than 0.05 nT resolution is better and worth an extra few watts. Or, in this case, that using both flux gate and helium sensors is worth the extra cost and complexity. NASA just says what it wants.
In addition, a facility instrument is provided by an instrument team, and their job is done when the hardware is launched and commissioned. There isn’t a combined hardware building, operating and science team. Basically, it’s treated as a purchase of a spacecraft system, like buying a thruster from Aerojet Rocketdyne, not hiring a science investigation.
It also could be either a competed contract or a sole-source contract. But if it’s competed, the selection would be exclusively based on providing the specified hardware on time and within budget.
Eight months before the project level critical design review isn’t exactly early. But it’s still in time to fix the problem without throwing money at it.