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As per Space.com's Methane in plume of Saturn's moon Enceladus could be sign of alien life, studies suggest that Enceladus and Europa are the two most promising solar-system bodies on or in which to search for extra-terrestrial life.

Why does Mars continue to been given so much focus when we already have several rovers there, instead of sending arial or sub-surface rovers to Enceladus and Europa? Budget wise I believe the missions would cost the same as that of Mars, while Mars is pretty much dry and the research focuses on finding signs of life that "may" have existed in the past, so how come it supersedes the mission to find signs of life that have the potential to "exist right now" in Enceladus and Europa?

It appears to me at least that billions of US dollars are being spent on a barren planet rather on these two moons that may support life. Though thin, Europa's atmosphere is composed of oxygen.

user0193
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    Europa Clipper will be launching in 2024: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-europa-clipper-mission – Alfonso Gonzalez Jul 24 '21 at 23:30
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    @AlfonsoGonzalez thanks but its just another satellite, not surface or subsurface mission. – user0193 Jul 24 '21 at 23:47
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    @user0193 Yes I'm super excited for a (hopefully) future Europa submarine – Alfonso Gonzalez Jul 25 '21 at 00:35
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    The main reason is how far (in delta-v) the icy moons are from Earth Orbit. Europa surface is 17.5km/s, which is 3 times as "far" as Mars surface, at 5.6km/s. but measured as Tsiolkovsky would, it is 13.3 times as "far". (13.3 times higher fuel ratio needed). Add to that the very interesting radiation environment of Europa (54000 times as much radiation as the stil-evacuated city of Pripyat, next to Chernobyl) makes for challenging engineering. – CuteKItty_pleaseStopBArking Jul 25 '21 at 14:07
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    Searching for life just one of many scientific objectives when it comes to exploring planets and moons. IMO it's not a very high-priority one, because it's actually rather likely that in our solar system there is only life on Earth. If anything, the possibility of there being life on Enceladus is reason not to go there before we have had the chance to look at it better by other passing-by missions, space telescopes etc.. – leftaroundabout Jul 25 '21 at 20:06
  • NASA may send a lander mission to augment Europa Clipper but the funding is uncertain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Lander – MissMonicaE Jul 26 '21 at 20:15
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect – Jeremy Friesner Jul 27 '21 at 04:34
  • @JeremyFriesner are you suggesting that we are searching in Mars because its possible (not because its desirable) while we should be searching in Europa or Enceladus? – user0193 Jul 27 '21 at 11:30
  • @user0193 IMHO we should be exploring both, but it's unreasonable to expect us to do so unless/until the necessary technology is available and working. – Jeremy Friesner Jul 27 '21 at 13:37
  • @CuteKItty_pleaseStopBArking Where did you get the "54000 times as much radiation" from ? I thought the magnetosphere of Jupiter protects Europa from the solar wind. – Cornelis Jun 25 '22 at 16:14
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    @Cornelis Jupiter itself is radioactive – user0193 Jun 25 '22 at 21:50
  • @user0193 There's a difference between radioactivity and radiation. https://quora.com/Why-does-Jupiter-have-radiation ? – Cornelis Jun 26 '22 at 08:51

4 Answers4

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There are probably many answers, but for guesstimating hypothetical missions a look at delta-V/subway maps like this are highly informative in terms of problem scale.

Working from that getting into LEO is 9.4 km/s, these are the rockets you see launching regularly, and can get about 5% of their launch mass into orbit. Earth escape needs another 3.41 km/s, from there getting to a mars intercept is another 0.39 km/s and because mars has an atmosphere we do not need rockets for most of the orbit insert/landing Delta-V, just a reasonably capable heat shield.

If we want a Jupiter intercept it is another 2.7km, and because Europa has very little atmosphere we probably need to use a rocket to descend deep into Jupiter's gravity well rather than aerobraking, meaning for a given booster we get far less mass (possible as little as 5%) to Europa orbit as we can get to Mars for the same mission cost, and need for more complex power, heating and radio systems for a further reduction in 'useful' payload.

The planned Europa Clipper mission uses one of the largest boosters currently available to get 6000kg en route to Jupiter and then burns around 4000kg of fuel getting into orbit (using gravity assists to get more payload than above), with a payload of instruments of 353 kg. Taking this as a template we could redesign the craft to land - using that 353 kg to add landing gear, more fuel and more structure to support the solar panels during landing but suspect we come up with a negative available payload mass. Or we could remove the instruments and make a 300kg lander, which would certainly be possible (similar D/V for a Lunar orbit to Lunar surface) but would be battery powered and very basic.

Getting to Saturn and Enceladus requires even more engine performance, and is beyond the point where solar power is useful adding political costs from launching nuclear RTGs into the mix.

So missions to these places are certainly possible, but the payloads are going to be far smaller than to mars and look far more like Huygens in terms of delivering a couple of pictures and some basic chemistry for a limited period than what we get on mars. Certainly would not be a meaningful search for life, and not much better than the orbiting probes have gathered.

So to date for a given amount of money there has been more return seen taking a complex craft to mars than a more basic craft to the outer moons. As Mars becomes better studied, this is changing hence the progress on Europa Clipper, which at one stage appears to have included a lander at similar cost to an entire mars mission.

End Anti-Semitic Hate
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GremlinWranger
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  • is aerobraking in Jupiter to reach Europa plausible, or is there too high a risk of either plunging too deep by accident or missing and flying off into deep space? – John Dvorak Jul 25 '21 at 08:16
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    Aero braking at Jupiter is probably possible physics wise, but the very high radiation level in low orbit seems to have deterred all probes to date, including Juno which would have had a much simpler mission profile if it had done so. Note also for a high energy aerobrake into orbit you need to be able to stow solar panels/antenna etc and then re-deploy them reliably. – GremlinWranger Jul 25 '21 at 08:36
  • "the very high radiation level in low orbit seems to have deterred all probes to date" Couldn't this be used as a method of braking in its own right? Either collecting the strong magnetic fields to power an ion engine or something, or pushing off the magnetic field itself? – nick012000 Jul 25 '21 at 09:57
  • @nick012000 you might be onto something there, but testing in LEO has proven this is tricky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-75 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tether – GremlinWranger Jul 25 '21 at 10:05
  • Well reading this makes me wonder how come composites like kevlar, carbon fiber havent solved the weight, resilience and durability issues on the launcher yet. Aluminium based alloys are perhaps limiting the progress. – user0193 Jul 25 '21 at 12:46
  • The current estimated costs of the Europa Clipper and Perseverance missions are $4.25 billion and $2.75 billion, respectively. – David Hammen Jul 25 '21 at 13:27
  • Of course the sensible thing to do for a higher mass probe would be to use several launches, and assemble it in low Earth orbit. But launches cost money, RTGs cost money, building the probe costs money, paying the science & engineering teams costs money... There doesn't seem to be anyone interested in spending that much of their own money, and Congress (or whoever does budget allocation for the EU) doesn't seem interested in spending that much tax money. – jamesqf Jul 25 '21 at 16:39
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    @user0193 space agencies look into that kind of stuff very carefully, especially anything that could save mass, and there's almost always a good reason for “why don't they just...”. Kevlar and CFRP are used in some space applications, but with any material there are a bunch of other considerations apart from mass. For example, plastics tend to cause outgassing problems. – leftaroundabout Jul 25 '21 at 20:13
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    @leftaroundabout: Plastics are also likely to become brittle at lower than Earth-normal temperatures. This can also be a problem with some metals & alloys, but presumably materials used in spacecraft headed for low-temperature environments have been tested. – jamesqf Jul 26 '21 at 04:26
  • And note that the Europa Clipper mission won't actually go to Europa--nowhere near the delta-v needed. It's going to Jupiter where it will conduct flybys of Europa, it will never enter Europa orbit. – Loren Pechtel Jul 30 '21 at 23:20
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@GremlinWrangler's answer sums up several important points;

  1. Getting a low mass rover from Earth all the way to landing on the surface of one of those Moons requires much much more rocketry (delta-v) than landing a much heavier and more capable/diverse probe on the surface of Mars.
  2. Solar won't work well there and RTG's are quite scarce

Let's also consider that

  1. Thanks to the evolving series of rovers and orbiters at Mars working in a highly coordinated way over decades, the effectiveness and scientific return (bang per buck) of missions there continue to increase, as well as experience in interpreting evidence of life rather than a search for actual living things looking back at you.
  2. Both of those moons have 10+ km thick ice crusts. There may be cracks and holes in places and water from oceans may have been deposited on the surface and frozen and exposed to radiation and so anything in it will have likely died. Luckily, experience gained from all those Mars rovers of looking for signs of life rather than living stuff will be helpful here.
  3. Missions going through the ice and into the ocean are currently hypothetical and problematic. You need a lot of energy to get through 10 km of ice no matter how you do it, and unless your spacecraft is absolutely completely 100% certain sterile you may contaminate a lifeless ocean or disastrously infect it with Earth organisms. To my knowledge there is not yet documented capability that spacecraft can be absolutely sterilized and yet still functional.1

1note added in proof: ...therefore if a mission is to be carried out, efforts have to be made to minimize this risk precisely because it can not be eliminated. Those might include further studies or calls for proposals for new ways to reduce biologically viable contamination. Alternatively this could become a sticking point and "maybe we shouldn't go just yet" thinking might kick this class of mission down the road a bit further.

In order to verify that others share my notion that complete sterilization is not currently possible I've just asked:

uhoh
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    100% certainty is impossible and is not required. The planned Europa lander is intended to have less than a 1 in 10000 chance of infecting Europa with Earth life (or a 99.99% probability of not infecting Europa with Earth life). – David Hammen Jul 25 '21 at 08:39
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    The COSPAR planetary protection policy states that requirements for Europa and Enceladus flybys, orbiters and landers, including bioburden reduction, shall be applied in order to reduce the probability of inadvertent contamination of an Europan or Enceladan ocean to less than $1x10^{-4}$ per mission. – David Hammen Jul 25 '21 at 09:02
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    And for those hypothetical subsurface missions, there's also the problem of communicating back to Earth through kilometers of ice and water. – notovny Jul 25 '21 at 09:49
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    @notovny You could hypothetically lay down a kilometers-long cable from a transmission tower on the surface down to an undersea-optimized transmission tower underneath the surface, but then you'd have to design a mission to fly those kilometers of cable there in the first place. – nick012000 Jul 25 '21 at 10:00
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    the comms through the ice is not an issue. You need to dig/melt a hole through it anyways, just lay a thin cable in the bore to get re-frozen. Or possibly better yet, just transmit via acoustic signals(like whales do, or sonar). The bitrate will be low, but the range through water and ice can be hundreds of km. Obviously, you leave the bulk of the lander, with antenna etc, on the surface. – CuteKItty_pleaseStopBArking Jul 25 '21 at 10:57
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    @user0193 Similar planetary protection rules apply to Mars landers and rovers. The "absolutely completely 100% certain sterile" in this answer is incorrect. – David Hammen Jul 25 '21 at 13:58
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    @DavidHammen There's absolutely nothing about the sentences I wrote about sterilization that is incorrect as written. You're reading something into it that is not there. – uhoh Jul 25 '21 at 14:19
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    @uhoh The "absolutely completely 100% sterile" is incorrect. That is not possible. – David Hammen Jul 25 '21 at 16:29
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    @DavidHammen He's not claiming it's possible. He's saying that if it's not sterile, contamination is a possibility. And since it's not possible to completely sterilize the lander, you cannot eliminate contamination as a possibility. – chepner Jul 25 '21 at 18:20
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    @chepner, yet uhoh's Point 5 is open to interpretation that "completely 100% certain" is a requirement by some committee, or at least a goal. I am inclined to believe that such a goal has never been set by NASA or any scientific committee. This boils down to saying "if you are not 100% sure, don't do it", which then means "don't EVER do it". – Ng Ph Jul 25 '21 at 20:55
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    @NgPh no, a re-reading will show that I did not say that. But it's interesting that that's where you went with it! – uhoh Jul 25 '21 at 23:56
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    @uhoh I read it the same way that NgPh did. That "absolutely completely 100% certain sterile" is not a requirement. That you asked a subsequent question, to which you linked, strongly suggests you that this is a requirement. That you wrote in a comment that maybe 99% is good enough for government work made it clear you think that this should be a requirement. It isn't. No sane engineering team would sign up to a 100% success requirement. – David Hammen Jul 26 '21 at 00:33
  • @DavidHammen nothing in my answer post says anything about any requirement. You're reading your own views into what I wrote. It's not there. – uhoh Jul 26 '21 at 00:38
  • @DavidHammen the only thing I've said in comments is that what's actually written in the post does not say what you or someone else suggest it says, and what folks say it "suggests" is non sequitur. I haven't commented on anything else but that. – uhoh Jul 26 '21 at 03:19
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    @uhoh, its you 2nd sentence, since you are are looking for a document that proves the "capability that spacecraft can be absolutely sterilized and yet still functional". Either you believe that its an accepted goal, but nobody can meet it yet, or your Point 5 should not be part of your list (of difficulties for a mission to discover extra-terrestrial life). – Ng Ph Jul 26 '21 at 08:45
  • @NgPh This is stack exchange. We don't divine what other users might or might not believe. That's outside the scope of what comments are for. – uhoh Jul 26 '21 at 09:44
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    You could add to your answer that Mars' atmosphere also helps (no need for retrorockets to remove most of the kinetic energy). – Peter Mortensen Jul 26 '21 at 09:48
  • @NgPh Nonetheless point #5 covers a very standard and important aspect of all deep-space missions, both landers and orbiters of bodies with little or no atmosphere. It's not my idea. See this answer to Why was Dawn placed into an orbit that would only be stable for “decades” and this answer to Are not crash landings on Mars violating the Planetary Protection rules? and especially this answer to Why is Curiosity not heading for Peace Vallis?... – uhoh Jul 26 '21 at 09:57
  • ...and answers to Why do deep space probes have to be sterilized? and this answer to How certain are we that we have not accidentally sent life to other planets/moons? – uhoh Jul 26 '21 at 09:57
  • @PeterMortensen that's covered in the delta-v discussed in item #1 in which I refer readers to GremlinWrangler's excellent answer that covers that in detail. – uhoh Jul 26 '21 at 10:00
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    @uhoh, anybody understands the logic of stricter rules where environmental conditions are closer to that on Earth. No need to declare that we may need, or should aim at, "absolute completely 100%". This being SPACE and not POLITICS SE, a minimum rigor would be helpful. Admitting you didn't mean the absolutism that you wrote would be better than arguing that you are allowed to mince words, and others are not allowed to comment on the risk of misinterpretations. Politicians love this game. Scientists don't. – Ng Ph Jul 26 '21 at 12:55
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    @uhoh If literally everyone who has read what you've written has misread it in your opinion, then the only reasonable interpretation is that your wording is unclear. – Nye Jul 27 '21 at 14:18
  • @uhoh: Instead of arguing semantics, I'd suggest updating your answer's point about the sterilization difficulty. You could phrase it more like David Hammen did, and say that sterilization is a concern and a burden, perhaps even moreso than Mars. Every mission you send has a tiny chance of disaster, so it may make some sense to wait until we're ready to send "better" missions. As a curious amateur, I did get the impression from your answer that sufficient sterilization for a Europa mission was a real problem we don't fully know how to solve, whether that's what you meant or not. – Peter Cordes Jul 27 '21 at 22:02
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    TL:DR: being not technically wrong isn't always sufficient. The impression it gives to readers learning about the issue for the first time can still be inaccurate, and that's something to consider and improve on in Stack Exchange answers. I think / hope that's the kind of change other commenters like @NgPh were trying to suggest. – Peter Cordes Jul 27 '21 at 22:03
  • @NgPh There are plenty of questions here already about life and death, US politics and international politics, regulations, laws, rules and ethics. Like it or not, tough issues are an integral part of spaceflight; always have been and for the foreseeable future will be. Not every challenge can be solved with the Tsiolkovsky and vis-viva equations, some require thought, discussion and introspection. – uhoh Jul 27 '21 at 23:27
  • Totally up to you how you want to phrase your answer, and what impression you want it to give to readers. If you disagree with commenter's take on the issue and happy with it, that's fine. I just wanted to refocus on making sure your answer gives the impression you want it to along with the facts, rather than some point of pride about whether it was technically correct or not. I thought David's point sounded reasonable and was interested to find out what the consensus(?) standards were, so I phrased my comment assuming you agreed with it. I wasn't suggesting conformity for it's own sake. – Peter Cordes Jul 27 '21 at 23:32
  • I'm not trying to disagree with your point; being cautious about contaminating other worlds is totally reasonable. I'm not trying to spin your wording, sorry if it ended up phrased that way. Was honestly just curious about the differing points of view and after previous commenters pointed out the actual sterilization standards planned for some real missions, and was trying to confirm if you were intentionally disagreeing, not just (over) simplifying. – Peter Cordes Jul 28 '21 at 01:10
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    @PeterCordes The only things I've explicitly disagreed with is the "So what you are saying is"-isms. I have not explicitly agreed nor disagreed with others' views on contamination and sterilization. This is by design and is not an oversight. – uhoh Jul 28 '21 at 01:17
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The motive for the exploration of Enceladus and Europa is different from that of Mars. The primary motive for exploration of the two moons is the possibility of finding an independent instance of life, while the exploration of Mars also includes gathering information for likely future human colonization.

Of the three worlds, Enceladus is the most challenging because Saturn is really big (massive) and Enceladus orbits at just over four Saturn radii out, so is in an extremely deep gravitational well. We did a study of a possible flagship mission to Enceledus in 2009 (1). Although more has been discovered about Enceladus since then, I believe the Enceladus Report is still the most detailed study of the nuts and bolts of an actual mission there.

In order to save enough fuel to get down to Enceladus once we reached Saturn, we had to assume multiple gravity assists, so wouldn't reach Enceladus until about 10 years later (actual data in ref 1) and the MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) for many flight items is not rated for more than 10 years. Section 3.1.1.1 of the report discuses some of the obstacles that must be overcome for such a mission.

So, if you ask "If searching for a second instance of life is so important, why are we planning multiple missions to Europa and none for Enceladus right now?". The answer is: it's a lot harder (and more expensive) to get to Enceladus.

(1) https://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/Enceladus_Public_Report.pdf

Vince 49
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    In essence: learn to walk before you try to run. – Ng Ph Jul 25 '21 at 20:57
  • That Mars exploration has a human precursor element is huge. We're not ever going to send humans to Europa because of the delta-V and radiation issues, and probably not Enceladus to either because of the even larger delta-V issues. – David Hammen Jul 25 '21 at 23:17
  • so wouldn't reach Enceladus until about 10 years later this really makes me dissatisfied as we perhaps wont get to see lander mission to Enceladus anytime soon or perhaps never in our life. I hope Europa gets studied using surface/subsurface landers – user0193 Jul 25 '21 at 23:55
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    @user0193 Subsurface? Massive amount of equipment and fuel are needed to drill through 2 km of Antarctica ice, plus a good number of people to oversee drilling operations in real time. Subsurface operations on Europa and Enceladus is pure science fiction at this point in time. – David Hammen Jul 26 '21 at 02:21
  • @DavidHammen yes, makes sense. Assuming we will have to drill, perhaps we may see other innovative solutions such as melting the ice at the entry point instead of drilling but then the challenge would be keeping the robot working at -225 degrees Fahrenheit! – user0193 Jul 26 '21 at 11:43
  • Isn't Mars the most Earthlike object in the solar system? Either way, how are Enceladus or Europa "planets", whether or not they might support life? – Robbie Goodwin Jul 26 '21 at 20:19
  • @DavidHammen found this video of Russia's planned lander onto Ganymede instead of Europa by 2026! Tip: turn on the captions and use auto-translate from Russian to English – user0193 Jul 27 '21 at 21:24
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This is a late answer, but ...

Budget wise I believe the missions would cost the same as that of Mars.

You have grossly underestimated the cost of a Europa lander. The increased delta V needed to get to and land on Europa alone vastly increase the cost of a lander mission to Europa compared to a lander mission to Mars. The enhanced radiation protection needed to make a Europa lander viable vastly increases the cost even more.

And then there's planetary protection. If the current placeholder value of one in ten thousand chance of infecting Europa with Earth life remains intact, this increases the costs even more. This would require the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the launch facility to upgrade their class 10000 clean rooms by orders of magnitude. A class 10000 clean room means there are up to 10000 tiny particles, including bacterial spores, per cubic foot of air. While that represents a two order of magnitude reduction from the number of dust particles in room air, it means that the most recent Mars rover mission probably brought half a million bacterial spores to Mars.

Yet another factor is terrain. We do not yet know if Europa's terrain is lander friendly, let alone hopper friendly or rover friendly. There are some who speculate that Europa is covered with ice spikes. A three meter tall ice spike would not be visible in the currently available images of Europa. We need better images of Europa before we even think of sending a lander or hopper or rover to Europa.

David Hammen
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  • most recent Mars rover mission probably brought half a million bacterial spores to Mars just wondering, dont these bacteria die in vaccum, cosmic radiation while travelling 6 months to Mars? I recently found that Russians are expected to send a lander to Ganymede by 2026, which is another Jupiter moon, which makes me wonder that there perhaps these bacteria may die out in harsh conditions, another answer here mentioned it would takes 10 years to reach, perhaps the journey itself could be considered a sterilization process.. – user0193 Jul 28 '21 at 20:56
  • I also found this reference to your claim of ice spikes – user0193 Jul 28 '21 at 21:00
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    @user0193 Tardigrades have been found to be viable after years in space, and tardigrades are wimps compare to some bacterial spores. – David Hammen Jul 29 '21 at 16:49