Propulsion lead from Goddard here! Excellent video, Scott. We're so happy this thing is off the ground and heading outbound :) Fun stats: we're expecting the Jupiter orbit insertion burn to require around 800 m/s dV, take ~5.5-6 hrs, and consume approximately 60% of our total loaded propellant.
By switching from SLS to Falcon heavy, the travel time got extended by several years. Does that impact the useful time which europa clipper has around Jupiter and if yes by how much?
@@foximacentauri7891 my understanding is that our limiting case is still radiation degradation as Scott pointed out. We'll be spending a bit more time in transit so eating a little more average solar radiation, but that pales in comparison to what Jupiter spits out. Propellant budget is still golden for primary tour
Man, the amount of precision to hit all of these gravity assists is mind boggling. In the emptiness of space with compounding difficulty surrounding the accuracy - just wild.
I mean the moons and planets are huge and travel in a predictable path we've been tracking for centuries. Missing them is kinda hard if you have the data. The accuracy needed is the same as catching a train that arrives and leaves at set times in a location you know.
@@asandax6 I know, we can land something in a bucket a billion miles away without seeing what it's doing. Just keep the stormtrooper away from the yoke.
@@asandax6 Actually simple Newtonian physics don't work very accurately at this scale. Especially when you're doing multiple gravity assists in a single mission. Planning and predicting maneuvers like this require lots of processing from very powerful supercomputers, and even then they have a degree of inaccuracy, necessitating extra fuel to perform adjustment burns.
@@chaosopher23 They do "see" it, though. The accuracy is only possible because the trajectory is very accurately measured from Earth multiple times during the flight, and then corrected. The positions and velocities of all significant bodies in the Solar System are likewise measured periodically and the data is used to calculate the best fitting trajectories. This averages the measurements over a period of time, and produces quite accurate results.
Another thorough video, Scott. Yes, I finally made it into one of your videos. I was one of the design engineers following the deploying magnetometer boom we delivered to JPL that you showed being deployed in a JPL cleanroom.
I don't think I was ever in one of his videos, didn't work on this one but worked on many others (Juno, Mars Orbiter, Mars Landers....). Many many a painful hour in a highbay cleanroom watching one deployment or another. Design engineer as well, but retired earlier this year.
@@rarelycares8416 @scottyallen7237 thank you both for your service in furthering Humanity's knowledge of the universe (and inspiring me and countless others !)
Hi Scott. Excellent overview. I was the mechanical system engineer at JPL. The Venus fly by was based on the Delta 4 heavy LV. Early on we had SLS but it wasn't guaranteed. We fell into this time period where there were no LV available on the market so if SLS fell thru, we would have to piece together a Delta 4. Once FH became a possible LV, we started work shopping a Star 48 or Orion 50XL kick stage. Psyche work led to the MEGA option that made the kick stage obsolete. So we removed some .65AU capabilities for the less stressing .82AU hot case. We still have huge temp ranges. SA are deployed and everything is working well so far. Few little "whats going on" but working well. We just finished the first frequency ID. GNC is still working the response data. We're about 2 weeks out till magnetometer deployment and 4ish weeks out till reaction wheel spin up. Go Clipper. My first time working with SpaceX and they were great. You should do a quick video on the MOSFET issue. Maybe we'll get an Enceladus Clipper next.... While we still have the engineering knowledge on hand.
I suppose that would require a Starship with in-orbit refueling. Would Vulcan with six SRB‘s be enough? Probably not, plus there’s the problem with solids shaking the electronics.
@@EMichaelBallVulcan wasn't going to be qualified in time but I'm sure we could find a trajectory where it would work and have the ride. But I don't know for sure since that wasn't a vehicle we considered. Starship is bigger than FH so it would work. But I don't know how spacecraft separation would work. I've never seen that as a Starship use case. I think they may have proposed cargo doors at some point. But it's also not qualified in time.
It really is awesome and *_greatly_* appreciated that you and many of your colleagues drop into the comments of Scott's videos, to share info and even answer some questions. Thank you! 🍻 It's a nice reminder that there's are still some really positive things the internet has to offer, in spite of the negatives 😊
Scott, I've been a subscriber for a long time now, and I have to say that this is one of the best videos that you've done. Your ability to explain some very complex information without leaving anything (much) out is really a joy to watch.
In the early space program (Mercury - Apollo), sewing seemed to be the only publicly acknowledged place for women. The men designed the space suits, but of course sewing was women's work. I remember seeing those films and feeling really uncomfortable. Didn't those male engineers feel stupid?
@@raam1666 Because they can design and build an incredibly sophisticated spacecraft while excluding women from any visible participation, but they have to get a woman to operate the sewing machine. The appearance is that they are too stupid or too fragile in their masculinity to do it themselves.
@@raam1666 My 1st reply seems to have been taken down for some reason. The male engineers either thought they weren't smart enough to operate a sewing machine or they were too fragile in their masculinity to bee seen trying.
@@beenaplumber8379 No... The engineers clearly left it to the professionals. They in fact knew their place in the field, worthless. Why do you people insist on seeing the worst in everything? Sick and tired of types like you.
Europa and the Europa Clipper mission and why it's the best chance of finding life outside of Earth was the subject of my final assessment for my astronomy subject at University. I'm so pumped for this mission.
In your opinion, what would be the point at which we have searched long enough, and then it's time to introduce organisms? I'm thinking of Venus too, we could try seeding some microbes in the atmosphere and see if they can make it. But I guess once we do this to any planet, if anything existed before will be rather gone
What’s even freakier is most of the ionizing particles in those radiation belts are emissions from IO, ionized by the radiation and then accelerated to relativistic speeds by Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Edit: that was a fascinating realization since prior to learning that I thought it was just trapped solar wind
Don't confuse this with Europa Clippy, which is forever annoyingly asking Europa Clipper if it needs help performing those spectrometer readings. I'll see myself out.
Same situation will happen when we try interstellar travel. Crew wakes up from stasis to find the new system already inhabited by humans that learned FTL and passed them halfway there.
Imagine you're on a mission to one of those Wolf or Gliese systems, and while you're there deploying your lovely new state-of-the-art imaging and side-scan radar satellites your grandchild shows up in a faster ship and starts deploying better ones.
@@Sableagle And you start to feel old and start telling your grandchild that things were better back in my day, our space probes are better made and don't need no fancy tri-quantum super computer chips to function.
while this is possible with interstellar travel or distant intra-system travel, it doesn't really apply to mars lol. if your trip to mars is taking 4 years, something with your trajectory is seriousely wrong, or you hitched a ride on a solar sailing cargo ship, and you're not gonna be alive for long lol
Knowing more about Europa & Enceladus has been two things very close to my heart! Your work is exemplary Scott. Thank you kindly for this magnificent overview of a deeply important mission.
@scott manley Could you one day make a video, on how the launch companies come up with those complicated maneuvers? How do they come up with for example 2 gravity assist of Venus, one from earth, one from.. etc and arrive at the destiny? Is there a supercomputer that runs tons of options, how do they know that or when planets align perfectly for multiple gravity assists? I hope I inspired you for this question, because I would be very curious!
Well, they have been figuring such trajectories for many decades now. Luna 3 used a gravity assist from Earth to reach the moon. Voyager program used gravity assists. The idea of gravity assists for space flight originated before WW2. The first known calculations for space flight using gravity assist were published in 1956.
Thank you for this excellent and comprehensive (layman's) breakdown of the Europe Mission. Kudos, as well, for the factoids about which spacecraft had the highest Delta-V imparted to it by the rocket carrying it into space. WRT to the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, it was great that you reminded all of your viewers that this film focused on Europa (just the like the book by Arthur C. Clarke on which it was based). Fun fact, the main stars of the film were the late American actor, Roy Scheider and a very young and compelling Helen Mirren, whose Russian ancestry likely helped her pull off that great impression of a Russian cosmonaut.
@@RickTheClipper you mean "we"... there is no "they" without our allowance. "we" humans are doing this, not them scientists. humanity brought forth knowledge and retention for it. humanity served them and they serve humanity, we all do. so WE will land and Europa, Will belong to the Empire!
@@RickTheClipper We could land a probe. The travel time will be long, but the radiation would be the big problem for landing people. I don't see why we couldn't have a 2001-size ship in the next decade.
Wow Scott fantastic graphics and of course an eloquent flow of information carefully supported by your knowledge and experience! I was mezmerized to the point of complete focus on you. Thank you for an excellent report. Cheers!
You mentioned that Galileo had a bearing between the rotating and stationary sections. Wouldn't there still be some latent friction that would cause the stationary section to slowly build up rotation? Can you elaborate on that mechanism and how it offered complete stability?
nasa still has the galileo specs available online, i just took a look at the bearings and they're just regular steel ball bearings with a bunch of sections for motors and data transfer. ludicrously complex but nothing exotic. i imagine that since they knew exactly how much torque friction would cause, .5 Nm, they just compensate with the motors. given the paper im looking at is very specific about the ripple torque (a new term to me but it seems to be the consistency of a motors torque) which would need to be precise to steadily counter friction without creating a wobble that seems like a good guess.
@@EvelynNdenial Yes, torque ripple applies to every motor that isn't a full entry turbine, the biggest being in single cylinder Diesel engines. It can be minimised in wave wound commutated motors but those are no good for space. It's also important that bearing friction is constant and any gears are extremely accurate. People don't think about that kind of engineering in the context of spacecraft. I came across it in the context of stabilising tank guns.
I was sad when SyFy canceled it... Happy that Amazon picked it up, even if I would likely never see it - where I live in E. TN, corpo America didn't care to roll out capable internet here and at that time, had no plans... Then, Starlink came, which _also_ lit a fire under asses and suddenly we have fiber 🙄 (but yay!) Then I watched the new episodes of _The Expanse...._ and was sad all over! To see that Amazon (or the writers?) had dropped the ball by taking their sweet time with the story, and then they, too, canceled it *RIGHT* as the story was getting good. 😞 I had just finished re-watching _Battlestar Galactica (2003)_ and honestly, if _The Expanse_ could've maintained the escalation in story as it had been progressing on SyFy, it could've been better than BSG!
That outpost on Io made 0 sense to me. You would have a hard time finding a worse place to put an outpost than a world with constant geologic activity and horrendous radiation. There is no safe place on Io.
2010 is great. It also has a cameo from Babylon 5 with an Omega class destroyer masquerading as the Leonov :) Europa Report is another movie I would highly recommend about.. interesting stuff happening on Europa.
No, it’s actually the other way around, because “2010” was released in 1984, and Babylon 5 did not begin until 1993, almost a decade later. The designer of the B5 Omega Class destroyer, Paul Bryant, was publicly quoted as saying: ”Yes, I can confirm that I ‘lifted’ the centre section off the Leonov in 2010 for the centrifuge. That's why the profile is exactly the same. I was feeling mischievous, so I added this little nod to the design. I thought someone would spot it immediately but no, it was years before anybody called me on it…”
@@lebleb8731 OK, maybe it was a misunderstanding. But the emoji usually used for “joke” or “sarcasm” is the wink ;) not the smiley face :) . The smiley face is more often used to say “yay!” or “isn’t that awesome” so I thought maybe your post was meant to be taken at face value.
It's not so much a question of is there European life but one of is there intelligent European life. Average European intelligence has definitely increased since brexit.
Scott Manley, I love how you give us such insight on so many subjects in one video: Math, Science, History, Linguistics too. Thank you for your vast knowledge and education. This is why I love following your channel.
I am always astonished by the flightpaths taken by the experts and optimized calculations. Of course, the numbers don't lie, it is still incredible that we already understand the orbital mechanics to such a great degree that we can send probes on year long missions and only need small corrections. What a time to be alive.
I absolutely loved the movie 2010. I've read the book several times and watched the movie dozens of times. It's on the rotation list for when I get stuck in a retirement home. The books 2061 and 3001 were O.K. but 2010 is actually my favorite of the four. Thank you for the concise breakdown of Clipper's mission.
2010 is a wildly better movie than 2001 and I will die on that hill. 2001 did some really neat and groundbreaking stuff, but *as a movie*, 2010 tells a more coherent story in a more timely way. 2010 never made me fast forward through the entire blue danube because it was so interested in watching spacecraft dock in real-time.
times change - the amazingness of 2001's representation of future technology at the time the film came out tends to be overshadowed by how old hat that has become in the mean time I agree that 2010 is a great movie - it is just that 2001 is a milestone in cinematic history btw I watched it 4 or 5 times now and it's never boring
@@physicswithpark3r-x3x I understand what you mean and agree to a large degree. It broke new ground when it came out in 1968 (was it?). I'm a Kubrick fan overall, but to me a movie like Dr Strangelove has held up better and garnered more repeat views from me than 2001. On the other hand I also love The Shining, which if I read correctly on many fan pages is rather disliked.
Love the 2010 movie because they tried to stay true to Newtonian physics. The cooperation that was necessary for the mission was a very nice plot point.
I was there for this launch! I worked on some of the intricate instrumentation inside of it, and it was quite the thing knowing some of the details inside of that fairing.
I prefer 2010 to 2001... 2001 is a slow thinker of a movie. It's great for its own reasons. 2010 is a more modern paced and structured movie that sets things up and pays them off with answers... and it's still just as real as it can be.
This is the best video I’ve seen summarizing Europa Clipper and I was engrossed for the enter thing. First rate space and science communication as per usual, Scott!
I thought we'd been forbidden to land there (“All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there.”) Tho' I suppose we aren't actually /landing/ so...
Meh, they broke those rules more than once in the books and nothing major happened ;D. (of course there's never been a sequel to "3001: The Final Odyssey" so who knows :).
Funny, thing...SLS could have had that probe there in 3 years. Selling out NASA to commercial space interests...what a brilliant idea. They hired a company, known for reusable rockets, and then had to "waste" one anyways, to do a worse job of getting it there quicker.
it would, but since the flyby will be a gravity assist, i'm afraid the ground track will be mostly over equatorial regions and not polar, so might not be possible, unless a supervolcano erupts and freezes the oceans before then ahah
The reason we don't use ptags is because we're out of pu238, my grandfather who was involved in the development of that technology at los almos in the 60s was bitching about the DOE policies when i was a teenager. You need thermal spectrum breeders to make pu238, thorium reactors with molten salts ate the most efficient.
@@schrodingersmechanic7622 The needed reactor is tiny. would weigh less then the solar system if i would to gamble. The design would also become more straight forward. More heating options.
Thanks Scott - very well structured explanation. 💙 …and yeah - 2010 is a really good movie, I believe they spent a fortune on fluid dynamic modelling to get Jupiter’s atmosphere behaving correctly.
It was the first thing that immediately popped into my head when you said Europa, HAL's relayed message from Bowman once Jupiter had been compressed enough for stellar ignition... “All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there”
@@vaulthecreator I thought of this as well when he mentioned 2010! Not the best movie but still a great watch for any space nerd, not really too many like it out there.
2010 was a great movie. I still remember seeing it in the theater as a kid. That scene where they floated from one ship to the other... pucker factor 10.
Dude that clip of this going into orbit around Europa blew my mind. Maybe it’s just me but to think of blasting this thing all the way out there into all that space and then just dropping it into orbit around that little moon is just nuts
Every time i see one of these missions head out i think, please let me live just till this date... but there's always the next, till one day, i wont be here to reap the reward of knowledge and wonder it beams back... young people, i envy you so much in what's to come.
I remember thinking as a kid they should have never shut down the Saturn V assembly. It would have been great just to find pretenses to use the rockets I said. My dad said NASA would have a better program in the space shuttle. I stand by the remark I had as a ten-year out in 1972.
Agreed, the Space Shuttle was a political decision by Richard Nixon not to continue the Democratic party Apollo program and to have his own Republican system replace it. Unfortunately, the Space -Turkey- Shuttle killed more astronauts than the rest of the American space program from 1961 to 2024 PLUS the entire Russian/USSR space program combined. The Space Shuttle violated many very hard and cruel rules of safety the must be obeyed if your people are going to live.
Well you got your wish in that SLS is de facto a continuation of the Saturn program but it’s turned out to be vastly expensive for all sorts of reasons.
@@epincion No, SLS is not anywhere near a continuation of the Saturn program, nor is it even half as expensive. However, it's more than we need to spend in this new era of private rocket companies.
@@RockinRobbins13 Scott Manley has a past upload on SLS and shows that it was/is designed to provide work for the government based (in NASA and the military) skills and infrastructure that was shrinking fast with the end of the Shuttle era and the rise of successful private companies. Effectively SLS is an updated Saturn V with many bits and pieces from other military rocketry programs like the Delta series. Without it a lot of expertise and infrastructure would have been lost. It proved doable in terms of funding because it’s a set of facilities spread over several states and with powerful politicians very keen that their state was not going to lose out. Hence its ‘alternative’ name the Senate Launch System.
@epincion no, the SLS is the continuation os the space shuttle tech and engines. Had we continue building the Satutn V. The SLS uses over engineered engines not r100the one used in Apollo to start.
Probably depends on how old you are. If you are 60 or older, the odds are slim as getting there will take the greater part of a decade and it will likely take another decade to plan and build the probe.
Great as usual! So Scott, when do you think we will go to the Moon and Mars? And how about the industrial companies that want to expolore the asteroid belt, how are they coming along? Have a nice sunday!
Q. Is it possible to use/test some of the instruments one the mars flyby for some extra science? Unless we already know more about mars than it can teach us. Or is it in hibernation mode to ensure it survives much longer at jupiter?
Scott's too popular these days to ever see this post, but I'm still going to say it... that Kerbal intro with the drum solo backtrack always makes me relax a bit knowing Ima bout to enjoy the next 30 minutes of my life.
How exciting! Thanks to certain media, I’ve always been fascinated by what we may find on Europa. I had no idea we were actually considering finding out!
Great program from you.... So Yes, that quantum leap in 1979 we got to see a tidbit of the Jupiter moon's by Voyager! And then finally with Gallo on scene... And were amazed and now with that knowledge we prepare missions to study what we saw and learned by the first mission to the outer planets...
I think 2010 is a highly underrated film. It's not a great 2001 sequel, but it holds up very well if you just view it as its own thing. Another enjoyable sci-fi film relevant to Europa is Europa Report.
Propulsion lead from Goddard here! Excellent video, Scott. We're so happy this thing is off the ground and heading outbound :)
Fun stats: we're expecting the Jupiter orbit insertion burn to require around 800 m/s dV, take ~5.5-6 hrs, and consume approximately 60% of our total loaded propellant.
By switching from SLS to Falcon heavy, the travel time got extended by several years. Does that impact the useful time which europa clipper has around Jupiter and if yes by how much?
@@foximacentauri7891 my understanding is that our limiting case is still radiation degradation as Scott pointed out. We'll be spending a bit more time in transit so eating a little more average solar radiation, but that pales in comparison to what Jupiter spits out. Propellant budget is still golden for primary tour
Casual propulsion nerd here. Does Europa Clipper use hypergols or electric propulsion? Also, CMGs or reaction wheels?
Just use your FSD
@@kyleeames8229 biprop hypergol: MMH and MON-3. Wheels for control
Man, the amount of precision to hit all of these gravity assists is mind boggling. In the emptiness of space with compounding difficulty surrounding the accuracy - just wild.
We know one thing: An imperial stormtrooper isn't driving.
I mean the moons and planets are huge and travel in a predictable path we've been tracking for centuries. Missing them is kinda hard if you have the data. The accuracy needed is the same as catching a train that arrives and leaves at set times in a location you know.
@@asandax6 I know, we can land something in a bucket a billion miles away without seeing what it's doing. Just keep the stormtrooper away from the yoke.
@@asandax6 Actually simple Newtonian physics don't work very accurately at this scale. Especially when you're doing multiple gravity assists in a single mission.
Planning and predicting maneuvers like this require lots of processing from very powerful supercomputers, and even then they have a degree of inaccuracy, necessitating extra fuel to perform adjustment burns.
@@chaosopher23 They do "see" it, though. The accuracy is only possible because the trajectory is very accurately measured from Earth multiple times during the flight, and then corrected. The positions and velocities of all significant bodies in the Solar System are likewise measured periodically and the data is used to calculate the best fitting trajectories. This averages the measurements over a period of time, and produces quite accurate results.
Another thorough video, Scott. Yes, I finally made it into one of your videos. I was one of the design engineers following the deploying magnetometer boom we delivered to JPL that you showed being deployed in a JPL cleanroom.
Lovely design on that one, reminds me of a collapsible wire clothes hamper I have at home.
I don't think I was ever in one of his videos, didn't work on this one but worked on many others (Juno, Mars Orbiter, Mars Landers....). Many many a painful hour in a highbay cleanroom watching one deployment or another. Design engineer as well, but retired earlier this year.
That's such a cool deployment mechanism.
@@rarelycares8416 @scottyallen7237 thank you both for your service in furthering Humanity's knowledge of the universe (and inspiring me and countless others !)
@@rarelycares8416enjoy your retirement. Thank you for your efforts!
Hi Scott. Excellent overview. I was the mechanical system engineer at JPL. The Venus fly by was based on the Delta 4 heavy LV. Early on we had SLS but it wasn't guaranteed. We fell into this time period where there were no LV available on the market so if SLS fell thru, we would have to piece together a Delta 4. Once FH became a possible LV, we started work shopping a Star 48 or Orion 50XL kick stage. Psyche work led to the MEGA option that made the kick stage obsolete. So we removed some .65AU capabilities for the less stressing .82AU hot case. We still have huge temp ranges. SA are deployed and everything is working well so far. Few little "whats going on" but working well. We just finished the first frequency ID. GNC is still working the response data. We're about 2 weeks out till magnetometer deployment and 4ish weeks out till reaction wheel spin up. Go Clipper.
My first time working with SpaceX and they were great.
You should do a quick video on the MOSFET issue.
Maybe we'll get an Enceladus Clipper next.... While we still have the engineering knowledge on hand.
I suppose that would require a Starship with in-orbit refueling. Would Vulcan with six SRB‘s be enough? Probably not, plus there’s the problem with solids shaking the electronics.
Thanks for the details, very interesting.
And huge congratulations on getting this far 🎉 , what an amazing vehicle and payloads.
@@EMichaelBallVulcan wasn't going to be qualified in time but I'm sure we could find a trajectory where it would work and have the ride. But I don't know for sure since that wasn't a vehicle we considered.
Starship is bigger than FH so it would work. But I don't know how spacecraft separation would work. I've never seen that as a Starship use case. I think they may have proposed cargo doors at some point. But it's also not qualified in time.
It really is awesome and *_greatly_* appreciated that you and many of your colleagues drop into the comments of Scott's videos, to share info and even answer some questions.
Thank you! 🍻 It's a nice reminder that there's are still some really positive things the internet has to offer, in spite of the negatives 😊
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE second these thoughts!
Shoulda brought a Mystery goo, or a gravioli smh
They needed a science lab bro
obvious answer is to just bring a kerbal and do a eva report
@@yodaman8015 spam crew reports
They need the Kerbal, The Myth Jeb. A few snacks some sport drinks, he would have it knocked out in no time.
@@yodaman8015This yodaman does KSP career like I do 😂😂😂
1:40 I was legitimately shocked by that size comparison. This thing is huge!!
Or maybe the statue is a lot smaller than we think? 😄
@@Alfred-Neuman either way its still may bigger than we thought
Indeed, it is. Now imagine what huge probes we could send into space, with the Starship 🤯
@@NoXPhasma You may have to imagine it.
like half of statue of liberty height is the pedestal, which was mostly not included in the size comparison
This is probably the single best video covering the Europa Clipper I've seen. So cool, hard to wait 5+ years for the first contact after approach.
veritasium's video is also really good :)
Scott, I've been a subscriber for a long time now, and I have to say that this is one of the best videos that you've done. Your ability to explain some very complex information without leaving anything (much) out is really a joy to watch.
Agreed. I failed all science/math in high school, but still was able to follow most of it! R (Australia)
Thank you for shouting out sewing in aerospace!
In the early space program (Mercury - Apollo), sewing seemed to be the only publicly acknowledged place for women. The men designed the space suits, but of course sewing was women's work. I remember seeing those films and feeling really uncomfortable. Didn't those male engineers feel stupid?
@@beenaplumber8379 Why would they?
@@raam1666 Because they can design and build an incredibly sophisticated spacecraft while excluding women from any visible participation, but they have to get a woman to operate the sewing machine. The appearance is that they are too stupid or too fragile in their masculinity to do it themselves.
@@raam1666 My 1st reply seems to have been taken down for some reason. The male engineers either thought they weren't smart enough to operate a sewing machine or they were too fragile in their masculinity to bee seen trying.
@@beenaplumber8379 No... The engineers clearly left it to the professionals. They in fact knew their place in the field, worthless. Why do you people insist on seeing the worst in everything? Sick and tired of types like you.
Europa and the Europa Clipper mission and why it's the best chance of finding life outside of Earth was the subject of my final assessment for my astronomy subject at University. I'm so pumped for this mission.
Will NASA come clean finally? Or cover it up?
Oh I did a presentation on this while doing my masters on atmospheric physics (Remote sensing). Absolutely inspired by 2010
In your opinion, what would be the point at which we have searched long enough, and then it's time to introduce organisms? I'm thinking of Venus too, we could try seeding some microbes in the atmosphere and see if they can make it. But I guess once we do this to any planet, if anything existed before will be rather gone
@@egooidios5061 isn't that the plot to the Val Kilmer movie Red Planet? But I mean why not add organisms and see what happens.
What’s even freakier is most of the ionizing particles in those radiation belts are emissions from IO, ionized by the radiation and then accelerated to relativistic speeds by Jupiter’s magnetosphere.
Edit: that was a fascinating realization since prior to learning that I thought it was just trapped solar wind
Don't confuse this with Europa Clippy, which is forever annoyingly asking Europa Clipper if it needs help performing those spectrometer readings.
I'll see myself out.
"It looks like you are trying to land a probe on a world strictly prohibited by the Godlike Obelisk civilization, would you like some help with that?"
Even the HAL-9000 would be preferable to that
CoPilot took his job, it's nice he found something new.
Yeah, and hogging the CPU when it appears.
And throw in the occasional BSOD?
11:55 did they even simulate the stuck-halfway high gain antenna??? Cool!
That is what it looked like at that time, so why not? :D
yes most models of the spacecraft, inn apps like the one scott is using, include the flown configuration, wiuch failed antenna included ahaha
Imagine you're on a 4 year trip to Mars, and after 2 years, a faster spacecraft passes you.
Same situation will happen when we try interstellar travel. Crew wakes up from stasis to find the new system already inhabited by humans that learned FTL and passed them halfway there.
Imagine you're on a mission to one of those Wolf or Gliese systems, and while you're there deploying your lovely new state-of-the-art imaging and side-scan radar satellites your grandchild shows up in a faster ship and starts deploying better ones.
@@Sableagle And you start to feel old and start telling your grandchild that things were better back in my day, our space probes are better made and don't need no fancy tri-quantum super computer chips to function.
while this is possible with interstellar travel or distant intra-system travel, it doesn't really apply to mars lol. if your trip to mars is taking 4 years, something with your trajectory is seriousely wrong, or you hitched a ride on a solar sailing cargo ship, and you're not gonna be alive for long lol
@@sprky777 The local inhabitants have been eating human travelers for years, and have some great recipes in mind for you.
5:43 always understated how amazing the photos from voyager were
The period sketches are beautiful! I've never seen those before. Thanks for putting them in
Knowing more about Europa & Enceladus has been two things very close to my heart!
Your work is exemplary Scott. Thank you kindly for this magnificent overview of a deeply important mission.
@scott manley Could you one day make a video, on how the launch companies come up with those complicated maneuvers? How do they come up with for example 2 gravity assist of Venus, one from earth, one from.. etc and arrive at the destiny? Is there a supercomputer that runs tons of options, how do they know that or when planets align perfectly for multiple gravity assists? I hope I inspired you for this question, because I would be very curious!
Regular desktop computer is enough for that. They do many trajectories to see which one works. Relatively simple once constants are known.
I would like to know that as well. Especially how I can calculate it myself for when I'm playing KSP.
Well, they have been figuring such trajectories for many decades now. Luna 3 used a gravity assist from Earth to reach the moon. Voyager program used gravity assists. The idea of gravity assists for space flight originated before WW2. The first known calculations for space flight using gravity assist were published in 1956.
I suggest you read up on gravity assist on wiki, a very good introduction to the topic
Timing is everything. 😊
Oh, right, I keep forgetting 2030 isn’t actually “forever” away. It’s just five-and-a-half-ish years ‘til this gets to Jupiter.
Pretty wild that a lot of people in the AI industry think we might doom ourselves from AI before then.
@@41-Haiku And there is a better than not chance that they are correct.
we gotta wait till that only as long as how much time passed since 2018. let that sink in
Thank you for this excellent and comprehensive (layman's) breakdown of the Europe Mission. Kudos, as well, for the factoids about which spacecraft had the highest Delta-V imparted to it by the rocket carrying it into space.
WRT to the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, it was great that you reminded all of your viewers that this film focused on Europa (just the like the book by Arthur C. Clarke on which it was based). Fun fact, the main stars of the film were the late American actor, Roy Scheider and a very young and compelling Helen Mirren, whose Russian ancestry likely helped her pull off that great impression of a Russian cosmonaut.
Great episode! You are one of the best channels for space exploration.
2010: The Year We Made Contact was a great movie! Amazing cast and a wonderful story that no one had to guest at. :)
i couldnt stop grinning the entire video.
the fact that these are all things we can do is utter madness to me, i love it.
“ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA.
ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.”
The scientists were smart 🧠 theyre only orbiting Europa, never gonna try and land 👽
@@nolanholmberg311 If they find a single bacteria, they will land
@@RickTheClipper you mean "we"... there is no "they" without our allowance. "we" humans are doing this, not them scientists. humanity brought forth knowledge and retention for it. humanity served them and they serve humanity, we all do. so WE will land and Europa, Will belong to the Empire!
@@swanclipper Not in our lifetime, even if You are a 5th grader. The distance is too big, and we will never have ships the size of 2001
@@RickTheClipper We could land a probe. The travel time will be long, but the radiation would be the big problem for landing people. I don't see why we couldn't have a 2001-size ship in the next decade.
I saw her fly! I was so glad I managed to catch the launch! Sent her off to Pioneer Song from Minus Ten and Counting.
And we have the "Europa Report" movie, of course...!
Wow Scott fantastic graphics and of course an eloquent flow of information carefully supported by your knowledge and experience! I was mezmerized to the point of complete focus on you. Thank you for an excellent report. Cheers!
Ever seen "Planes Trains and Automobiles"? "You're going the wrong way!" 😆🤣😉😄
2010 is a great movie. Let no one tell you otherwise! Great video, Scott. As always. 👍
If only 2001 was.
2010 was one of my favorite movies when i was a kid. A much better 'movie' than 2001 was. That was more of a tech demo with a loose story.
You mentioned that Galileo had a bearing between the rotating and stationary sections. Wouldn't there still be some latent friction that would cause the stationary section to slowly build up rotation? Can you elaborate on that mechanism and how it offered complete stability?
nasa still has the galileo specs available online, i just took a look at the bearings and they're just regular steel ball bearings with a bunch of sections for motors and data transfer. ludicrously complex but nothing exotic. i imagine that since they knew exactly how much torque friction would cause, .5 Nm, they just compensate with the motors. given the paper im looking at is very specific about the ripple torque (a new term to me but it seems to be the consistency of a motors torque) which would need to be precise to steadily counter friction without creating a wobble that seems like a good guess.
If it was a purely passive mechanism, sure. But even a small motor could counter that momentum transfer.
@@EvelynNdenial Yes, torque ripple applies to every motor that isn't a full entry turbine, the biggest being in single cylinder Diesel engines. It can be minimised in wave wound commutated motors but those are no good for space. It's also important that bearing friction is constant and any gears are extremely accurate. People don't think about that kind of engineering in the context of spacecraft. I came across it in the context of stabilising tank guns.
Whenever I hear about Jupiters moons I think of the expanse. Such a great show.
Remember the Cant
Ganymede 👌🏻
I was sad when SyFy canceled it...
Happy that Amazon picked it up, even if I would likely never see it - where I live in E. TN, corpo America didn't care to roll out capable internet here and at that time, had no plans...
Then, Starlink came, which _also_ lit a fire under asses and suddenly we have fiber 🙄 (but yay!)
Then I watched the new episodes of _The Expanse...._ and was sad all over! To see that Amazon (or the writers?) had dropped the ball by taking their sweet time with the story, and then they, too, canceled it *RIGHT* as the story was getting good. 😞
I had just finished re-watching _Battlestar Galactica (2003)_ and honestly, if _The Expanse_ could've maintained the escalation in story as it had been progressing on SyFy, it could've been better than BSG!
I think of The Runaway Robot.
That outpost on Io made 0 sense to me. You would have a hard time finding a worse place to put an outpost than a world with constant geologic activity and horrendous radiation. There is no safe place on Io.
2010 is *such* a good film. I absolutely recommend it.
@@therichieboy I like it better than 2001
@@olasek7972 it's a better film in many ways.
As a youngster I was way more able to digest 2010 than 2001
"We are sending a probe."
"Gooooooooooood."
@@brothergrimaldus3836 let's play a little game. It's called "the truth".
2010 is great. It also has a cameo from Babylon 5 with an Omega class destroyer masquerading as the Leonov :)
Europa Report is another movie I would highly recommend about.. interesting stuff happening on Europa.
No, it’s actually the other way around, because “2010” was released in 1984, and Babylon 5 did not begin until 1993, almost a decade later. The designer of the B5 Omega Class destroyer, Paul Bryant, was publicly quoted as saying: ”Yes, I can confirm that I ‘lifted’ the centre section off the Leonov in 2010 for the centrifuge. That's why the profile is exactly the same. I was feeling mischievous, so I added this little nod to the design. I thought someone would spot it immediately but no, it was years before anybody called me on it…”
@@brightboxstudio (yes i know. this was a joke. sheesh i even added a :))
I got it lol 😜
@@lebleb8731 OK, maybe it was a misunderstanding. But the emoji usually used for “joke” or “sarcasm” is the wink ;) not the smiley face :) . The smiley face is more often used to say “yay!” or “isn’t that awesome” so I thought maybe your post was meant to be taken at face value.
Once again we send a probe that can't really directly answer the one question we're all asking... Do Europeans really exist?
Europe is a distant and chilly place, bathed in radiation, so while it's not impossible, the chances are not that high
As an European myself, I can confirm that we, in fact, don't exist.
It's not so much a question of is there European life but one of is there intelligent European life.
Average European intelligence has definitely increased since brexit.
Well, I live in Europe and yet, I'm still not sure about this. The more the EU thinks to turn the people into Europeans, the more they fade away.
Jokes aside I think it would be Europans. Or Europianie as we’d say in my region of Europe.
Your videos on these types of missions are just the best. Your Cassini video especially is incredible.
Dark lords of delta v!
and delta iv
r/BandNames
Scott Manley,
I love how you give us such insight on so many subjects in one video: Math, Science, History, Linguistics too. Thank you for your vast knowledge and education. This is why I love following your channel.
21:03 I remember when Galileo flew by the earth and analyzed the hole in the ozone layer
I am always astonished by the flightpaths taken by the experts and optimized calculations. Of course, the numbers don't lie, it is still incredible that we already understand the orbital mechanics to such a great degree that we can send probes on year long missions and only need small corrections. What a time to be alive.
And at an time they could crash with a unknown tiny rock and we could do nothing about it.
@@molybdaen11a collision is extremely unlikely. Even in the asteroid belt, space is overwhelmingly empty
@@thatoneguy611 Oh it does not have to be a asteroid.
A small piece of lose dirt is enough to ruin a probe at the speeds involved.
@@molybdaen11 it’s still incredibly unlikely. The thing about space is there a LOT of it
I absolutely loved the movie 2010. I've read the book several times and watched the movie dozens of times. It's on the rotation list for when I get stuck in a retirement home.
The books 2061 and 3001 were O.K. but 2010 is actually my favorite of the four.
Thank you for the concise breakdown of Clipper's mission.
2010 is, I agree, a great film....in fact I may even watch my DVD of it now!
A very interesting post. I like the idea of redistributing heat to the colder parts of the spacecraft. QOTD "The dark Lord of DeltaV" ..... LOL!
2010 is a wildly better movie than 2001 and I will die on that hill. 2001 did some really neat and groundbreaking stuff, but *as a movie*, 2010 tells a more coherent story in a more timely way. 2010 never made me fast forward through the entire blue danube because it was so interested in watching spacecraft dock in real-time.
Finally someone said it!!!!
I agree! Just wrote a post about 2010 being my preferred movie of the two. Even dug out the old DVD I still got!
times change - the amazingness of 2001's representation of future technology at the time the film came out tends to be overshadowed by how old hat that has become in the mean time
I agree that 2010 is a great movie - it is just that 2001 is a milestone in cinematic history
btw I watched it 4 or 5 times now and it's never boring
@@physicswithpark3r-x3x I understand what you mean and agree to a large degree. It broke new ground when it came out in 1968 (was it?). I'm a Kubrick fan overall, but to me a movie like Dr Strangelove has held up better and garnered more repeat views from me than 2001. On the other hand I also love The Shining, which if I read correctly on many fan pages is rather disliked.
Love the 2010 movie because they tried to stay true to Newtonian physics. The cooperation that was necessary for the mission was a very nice plot point.
I was there for this launch! I worked on some of the intricate instrumentation inside of it, and it was quite the thing knowing some of the details inside of that fairing.
I prefer 2010 to 2001...
2001 is a slow thinker of a movie. It's great for its own reasons.
2010 is a more modern paced and structured movie that sets things up and pays them off with answers... and it's still just as real as it can be.
This is the best video I’ve seen summarizing Europa Clipper and I was engrossed for the enter thing. First rate space and science communication as per usual, Scott!
I thought we'd been forbidden to land there (“All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there.”)
Tho' I suppose we aren't actually /landing/ so...
We aren't known for following the rules 🤡
no harm in taking a look ;)
As long as you don’t get near the monolith you’ll probably be fine.
My God… it’s full of stars.
Fear not, for Clarke already gave us permission anyway.
Meh, they broke those rules more than once in the books and nothing major happened ;D. (of course there's never been a sequel to "3001: The Final Odyssey" so who knows :).
2010 was freaking awesome! One of my favorite scifis ever!
Glad to hear 2010 get a shoutout! Love that movie too.
Plus it’s free with ads on RUclips! (As I accidentally discovered last night)
where? i cant finde it :/
where?
Great book, terrible mistake of a movie
0:33! Love the poetry
I’m glad the Tylo gravity assist orbital insertion works in real life
That was truly an awesome video Scott! Very well put together, thank you so much 🙏🏻
Fascinating stuff! the sewing of the insulation... wow
Wow...the Siskel and Ebert moment at the end was the best part! Two Thumbs Up!
I've seen 2010 many times. It's a GREAT film!
Was actually thinking about 2010 during the video, and with you recommending at the end I know what I'm watching tonight!
Damn, I love your channel. This was great.
Well done, sir! I'm gratified (and not even slightly surprised) that you are a fellow 2010 fan.
This really tells you how much confidence NASA has in SLS availability in the future.
Funny, thing...SLS could have had that probe there in 3 years.
Selling out NASA to commercial space interests...what a brilliant idea.
They hired a company, known for reusable rockets, and then had to "waste" one anyways, to do a worse job of getting it there quicker.
@@codymoe4986 Are you saying SLS delays were not going to endanger the mission budget? Have you ever been honest?
Well done in depth video about this exciting craft
Seems Earth fly-by would be a calibration opportunity for detecting oceans under ice.
it would, but since the flyby will be a gravity assist, i'm afraid the ground track will be mostly over equatorial regions and not polar, so might not be possible, unless a supervolcano erupts and freezes the oceans before then ahah
@@soleenzo893 maybe if they tracked a star at an angle if could work, but I mostly agree
@@soleenzo893nahh
It’s going to be in hibernation until it achieves orbit around Jupiter so no possibility for collecting data before then.
@@Tn_jed001 There's no way they don't turn the cameras on during the Earth flyby. They did it on Juno.
Great video and explanation of the mission! You made it really exciting! Thanks!
The reason we don't use ptags is because we're out of pu238, my grandfather who was involved in the development of that technology at los almos in the 60s was bitching about the DOE policies when i was a teenager.
You need thermal spectrum breeders to make pu238, thorium reactors with molten salts ate the most efficient.
IMO we should just be using a little fission reactor at this point.
@@nerd1000ify
Oh ‘we’ will. It is just around the corner.
([“Corner”= 1 human generation ] + 20 earth orbits)
@@nerd1000ifythe tiniest fission reactor possible would still be too heavy for these long-distance space probes
@clayel1
but with practically unlimited power source you could just "burn" longer and compensate for the additional mass
@@schrodingersmechanic7622 The needed reactor is tiny.
would weigh less then the solar system if i would to gamble.
The design would also become more straight forward.
More heating options.
Fantastic video yet again Scott! Thoroughly researched and perfectly organized, with world class visuals. Keep up the excellent work!!
6:01 - Downloading? Or uploading? I guess in space there's no "up" and "down". Maybe offloading?
Thanks Scott - very well structured explanation. 💙
…and yeah - 2010 is a really good movie, I believe they spent a fortune on fluid dynamic modelling to get Jupiter’s atmosphere behaving correctly.
It was the first thing that immediately popped into my head when you said Europa, HAL's relayed message from Bowman once Jupiter had been compressed enough for stellar ignition... “All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there”
Some excellent advice that should been heeded by the crew of the seriously FUBAR'd mission in the Europa Report.
@@vaulthecreator Yup, the image of that creature trying to move but freezing & shattering at the same time has been with me ever since I read it!
@@vaulthecreator I thought of this as well when he mentioned 2010! Not the best movie but still a great watch for any space nerd, not really too many like it out there.
Gotta love the DEI tokens pictured throughout.
2010 was a great movie. I still remember seeing it in the theater as a kid. That scene where they floated from one ship to the other... pucker factor 10.
It's a much more complex movie than 2001. I love 2001, but actually prefer 2010. Having said that, 2010 is meaningless without 2001. Lol.
We have ALWAYS been at war with Russia!
The amount of calculus, physics and technology going on behind all of this is astounding. I can't even begin to imagine it.
2010 is a great film and easily among my 10 favorite movies of all time. It's very different from 2001, and I think that works in its favor.
Thanks Scott. A remarkable explanation of the various instruments aboard this spacecraft. Marvelous video and science lesson !
So, the Clipper has a PIMS Cup? I knew it was a classy probe.
Groan. 😩
But can it have its PIMS cup in a pimp cup?
Dude that clip of this going into orbit around Europa blew my mind. Maybe it’s just me but to think of blasting this thing all the way out there into all that space and then just dropping it into orbit around that little moon is just nuts
What a great video my friend
2010 is one of my all time favorite movies! (the book is awesome, too) Thanks for giving it some love!! 🙂
You need a "sacrificed to the Gods of delta-v"shirt
I, for one, am glad you recommend 2010, Odyssey Two. I absolutely love it!
Every time i see one of these missions head out i think, please let me live just till this date... but there's always the next, till one day, i wont be here to reap the reward of knowledge and wonder it beams back... young people, i envy you so much in what's to come.
Dark Lord of Delta V😂 I'm really enjoying this video Scotty,
I remember thinking as a kid they should have never shut down the Saturn V assembly. It would have been great just to find pretenses to use the rockets I said. My dad said NASA would have a better program in the space shuttle. I stand by the remark I had as a ten-year out in 1972.
Agreed, the Space Shuttle was a political decision by Richard Nixon not to continue the Democratic party Apollo program and to have his own Republican system replace it. Unfortunately, the Space -Turkey- Shuttle killed more astronauts than the rest of the American space program from 1961 to 2024 PLUS the entire Russian/USSR space program combined. The Space Shuttle violated many very hard and cruel rules of safety the must be obeyed if your people are going to live.
Well you got your wish in that SLS is de facto a continuation of the Saturn program but it’s turned out to be vastly expensive for all sorts of reasons.
@@epincion No, SLS is not anywhere near a continuation of the Saturn program, nor is it even half as expensive. However, it's more than we need to spend in this new era of private rocket companies.
@@RockinRobbins13 Scott Manley has a past upload on SLS and shows that it was/is designed to provide work for the government based (in NASA and the military) skills and infrastructure that was shrinking fast with the end of the Shuttle era and the rise of successful private companies.
Effectively SLS is an updated Saturn V with many bits and pieces from other military rocketry programs like the Delta series. Without it a lot of expertise and infrastructure would have been lost. It proved doable in terms of funding because it’s a set of facilities spread over several states and with powerful politicians very keen that their state was not going to lose out. Hence its ‘alternative’ name the Senate Launch System.
@epincion no, the SLS is the continuation os the space shuttle tech and engines. Had we continue building the Satutn V. The SLS uses over engineered engines not r100the one used in Apollo to start.
The navigation is mind-boggling! Thanks for the presentation!
Neptune and Uranus exploration in our lifetime please.
I am pretty sure that you can get Uranus explored any time that you want, if you are persistent enough.
@@curtiswfrankshave you tried to schedule a colonoscopy recently? Takes months unless it's urgent (diagnostic rather than just preventative).
Probably depends on how old you are. If you are 60 or older, the odds are slim as getting there will take the greater part of a decade and it will likely take another decade to plan and build the probe.
@@kentvesser9484 Oops! I'm 74 ... looks like I'm going to run out of road! R (Australia)
@@branscombeR - Same here, though I'm 9 years younger than you.
Great as usual!
So Scott, when do you think we will go to the Moon and Mars?
And how about the industrial companies that want to expolore the asteroid belt, how are they coming along?
Have a nice sunday!
2010 was a great film!
As usual, your enthusiasm and knowledge are unequaled. Your insights and guidance are spectacular. Thank you.
Q. Is it possible to use/test some of the instruments one the mars flyby for some extra science? Unless we already know more about mars than it can teach us. Or is it in hibernation mode to ensure it survives much longer at jupiter?
Juice did a lot of testing during the moon and Earth flyby. This is used by scientists to check out the instruments and actually get a reading.
Great vid, Scott - so much less hype than most - clear, concise and accurate. 🙂
Scott's too popular these days to ever see this post, but I'm still going to say it... that Kerbal intro with the drum solo backtrack always makes me relax a bit knowing Ima bout to enjoy the next 30 minutes of my life.
YEAH
How exciting! Thanks to certain media, I’ve always been fascinated by what we may find on Europa. I had no idea we were actually considering finding out!
I love 2010. An Charlton Heston did great acting in it❤
As did Helen Mirren!
Roy Scheider wasn't it? And John Lithgow and Bob Balaban. Fantastic cast! :)
@@tomahzo You're right. No Charlton Heston anywhere.🫣
Great program from you.... So Yes, that quantum leap in 1979 we got to see a tidbit of the Jupiter moon's by Voyager! And then finally with Gallo on scene... And were amazed and now with that knowledge we prepare missions to study what we saw and learned by the first mission to the outer planets...
6:04 ......erhmm....UPloading😊
Either way could be correct I guess.
Technicly it uploads the data however it is sending it down to earth.
Chicken or egg first problem I guess 😂.
If the data transfer is initiated from Earth, then it's a download.
This was an outrageously good documentary. Thank you, Scott.
I think 2010 is a highly underrated film. It's not a great 2001 sequel, but it holds up very well if you just view it as its own thing.
Another enjoyable sci-fi film relevant to Europa is Europa Report.
I love it how this spacecraft is using the tylo maneuver to capture at Jupiter
Scott made some hyperbolic statements.
Very informative, as always. I depend on you for a lot of technical information, so thank you for posting these!
2010 is also a great book.
Thank you for this detailed video, as always!