Controlling Contamination of Europa Due to the Europa Orbiter Mission

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Engineering, 2000-01

Liaison(s): John Klein
Advisor(s): Rich Phillips
Students(s): Matthew Clark (TL), Richard Woh, Cheng-Chung Lee, Ricky Lim

The goal of this project is to determine and verify a mathematical model for the behavior of a radioactive heat source on Europa, a moon of Jupiter. JPL is concerned that the radioactive source could melt through the ice to liquid water on Europa, possibly causing life from Earth to contaminate Europa. The team has implemented a model of the projected radioactive source behavior and conducted tests to verify the model’s validity in an environment similar to Europa.