NASA, ESA set sights on Jupiter

NASA and the European Space Agency will be pushing forward with plans to send a probe to Jupiter and its moons.

The agencies said Wednesday they will also try to plan another mission to study Saturn and its Titan and Enceladus moons. NASA said the decision to pursue the two missions was made at a meeting between the space agencies in Washington, D.C., last week.

The two space agencies said in joint statement that they have prioritized the mission to Jupiter. NASA and ESA researchers, after scrutinizing the two missions, concluded that the Europa mission was more feasible and should be initiated first, the statement said.

But the researchers were unable to say whether one mission had greater scientific merit than the other, so they decided to pursue both.

"Although the Jupiter system mission has been chosen to proceed to an earlier flight opportunity, a Saturn system mission clearly remains a high priority for the science community," Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, said in a statement.

Mission plans still in preliminary stages

But both the ESA and NASA said several more detailed studies are required before the missions can officially move forward.

NASA says the Jupiter mission would use two robotic orbiters to conduct detailed studies of the gas giant and its moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. NASA will build one of the orbiters, while ESA will build the other.

NASA said they are planning to launch both orbiters in 2020, and are expect them to reach Jupiter by 2026. Once there, the probes will conduct research for at least three years. The orbiters will spend at least a year orbiting Europa and Ganymede, NASA said.

The NASA probe will attempt to investigate whether Europa could harbour life, while ESA's probe will orbit Ganymede to gain a better understanding of its surface and interior.

For the Saturn mission, ESA would contribute a lander and research balloon to study the moons, while NASA would supply the orbiter. The Titan mission will look to build on observations made by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, which was launched in 1997 and has studied Saturn and its moons since 2004.

"The complex mission faces several technical challenges requiring significant study and technology development," NASA said.

NASA has previously sent probes to study Jupiter. The Galileo probe was launched in 1989, and studied Jupiter and its moons from 1995 until 2003. An antenna that did not fully extend hampered the probe, forcing researchers on Earth to use a less powerful antenna to receive images of Jupiter and its moons. It is hoped the new probe will be able to transmit higher-quality images.