WASHINGTON – NASA has made a request for launch services information for its Europe Clipper mission, a sign that the agency is using the language in a recent credit bill that makes it possible to consider alternatives to the Space Launch System.
The January 26 request for information seeks data from companies that believe they have vehicles capable of launching the mission, which orbit Jupiter and will make dozens of close approaches to Europe, an icy, possibly habitable moon.
The launch vehicle must be able to launch the spacecraft weighing at least 6,065 kilograms on an orbit containing gravity assistance from Mars and Earth before arriving at Jupiter. The launch would take place during a three-week window in October 2024.
At an information session of July 2020 to a committee of the National Academies, officials of the Europa Clipper project presented a proposal for one such course. A launch in October 2024 will be followed by Mars planes in February 2025 and from Earth in December 2026, with the spacecraft orbiting Jupiter in April 2030. option ”for a launch vehicle was feasible.
The SLS was the preferred vehicle for the Europa Clipper mission because it could bring the spacecraft to Jupiter much faster. The same briefing describes a launch window in August 2024 that the use of SLS would bring the spacecraft to Jupiter within a maximum of three years, without the need for flying aircraft.
NASA has in recent budget proposals attempted to launch Europa Clipper on a commercial vehicle rather than SLS. It argued that it would save the agency as much as $ 1.5 billion and release SLS vehicles for use in the Artemis program to explore the human moon. However, Congress has ordered the use of SLS for Europa Clipper in credit accounts up to and including the fiscal year 2020.
Another factor in the launch vehicle debate emerged in August when NASA announced it was investigating possible hardware compatibility issues between SLS and Europa Clipper. The agency did not elaborate on the specific issues, presumably associated with vibrations and other environmental factors that the spacecraft would experience during the launch.
The congress, which was approved for omnibus spending last month in the 2021 financial year, gave NASA some flexibility regarding the launch of Europa Clipper. The bill again stipulated the use of SLS for the mission, but only if ‘the SLS is available and if the torsion-loading analysis has confirmed that Clipper is suitable for SLS.’ The latter condition refers to the hardware compatibility issues that NASA previously reported.
The most likely commercial option for the launch of Europa Clipper is SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 Heavy, an earlier option, is no longer available because the remaining vehicles have all been assigned to national safety launches. ULA plans to withdraw the vehicle by the middle of the decade if it passes to the Vulcan Centaur.
Both Vulcan Centaur and Blue Origin’s New Glenn could be alternatives, but no vehicle undertook its first flight. The request for information states that the vehicle for Europe Clipper must comply with NASA’s Category 3 requirements for launch services, which require a vehicle to have at least three successful launches, including at least two consecutive successful launches. Falcon Heavy has flown three times so far, all successfully.
The credit bill that gave NASA the option to consider alternatives to SLS ordered the agency to hold a “full and open competition” for launch services should it choose not to use SLS, including the permission of vehicles that do not currently on NASA Launch Services 2 is not contracted.
The responses to the request for information are due to NASA by February 8. NASA did not say when it would decide on how to launch the Europa Clipper, or issue a formal request for proposals for launch services, but agency officials said last summer they hoped to decide how to launch the mission. would launch by the end of 2020.