NASA's Europa Clipper Mission Faces Transistor Durability Issue and Possible Delays
TapTechNews July 14th news, NASA said on Thursday that they are studying the durability problem of transistors on the $5 billion (TapTechNews note: currently about 36.338 billion Chinese yuan) probe flying to Jupiter's ocean moon Europa. This issue raises concerns about whether the spacecraft can operate as originally planned in the strong radiation environment around Jupiter.
The Europa Clipper is listed by NASA as a flagship mission, representing its most scientifically significant. The equipment problem this time may lead to significant delays in the mission. Experts point out that if the spacecraft is launched in October as originally planned, it may not be able to achieve the scientific goal of evaluating whether Europa has a habitable environment.
The problem lies in whether the transistors can resist the powerful radiation of the Jupiter system. Transistors are the basic electronic switches in computer chips and other electronic devices. Space is filled with radiation released from cosmic rays and solar flares, etc. All spacecraft need a certain degree of radiation protection. But Europa's orbit is in a particularly dangerous area, that is, the Jupiter radiation belt, where the radiation level is more than 50 times that around the Earth.
Juno, a relatively small NASA detector currently orbiting Jupiter, its chief researcher Scott Bolton said that spacecraft engineers are worried about two types of radiation doses. The cumulative dose will increase over time, while the dose rate is a sudden increase in radiation. Radiation can damage the data in the spacecraft's computer, cause short circuits, disrupt voltage levels and burn out electronic devices. To mitigate this effect, the spacecraft manufacturer can place shielding layers on sensitive exposed parts; build a radiation compartment to accommodate key components; or use radiation-resistant components, such as the chips that are now causing concerns.
On May 3rd, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California learned from a non-NASA customer that the crucial radiation-resistant chips failed the test at a radiation level far below the expected level. Jordan Evans, the Europa Clipper project manager at the laboratory, presented this problem at the meeting of the Space Studies Board last month, which is a committee of the National Academy of Sciences responsible for providing advisory advice to NASA.
Evans said that evaluating the newly discovered radiation vulnerability of the spacecraft is underway, and we still have time to continue this work while preparing for the launch.
The chips with problems on the Europa Clipper are called metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). Shannon Fitzpatrick, the head of NASA's planetary science department's flight projects, said at the meeting of the Planetary Science Advisory Committee this week, We found that some of these MOSFETs failed at radiation levels lower than around Europa. She also said at the meeting that engineers have not yet solved this problem.
Currently, the chips on the Europa Clipper are manufactured by the German semiconductor company Infineon Technologies and are also used in military spacecraft. A spokesperson for Infineon refused to com ment on actual or potential customers, but said the company has established strict processes to ensure that our products meet all relevant quality and performance standards.
All spacecraft that have visited Jupiter must deal with Jupiter's radiation. But only by getting close and diving into Europa's radiation swamp can the Europa Clipper mission study the key mysteries of Europa's ocean, ice layer and interior. In order to minimize radiation exposure, the spacecraft will orbit Jupiter instead of directly orbiting Europa and will pass Europa at different angles and a closest distance of 15 miles every few weeks.
Through this plan, the Europa Clipper will photograph 90% of Europa's surface area with extremely high resolution during its scheduled four-year mission.
The spacecraft and its specially designed scientific instruments are designed to determine whether Europa is suitable for extraterrestrial life to inhabit. Europa is about the size of the Earth's moon and is wrapped in an ice shell. Underneath the ice shell is an ocean with twice the liquid salt water content of the Earth. In the past 4 billion years, this ocean has been in a chemical reaction with its warm rocky seabed and the organic matter brought by comets and asteroids.
This month, a special team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory dedicated to studying chips will share preliminary results with the mission's scientists and engineers. They are simulating how long the spacecraft can survive around Europa if launched as it is now. If engineers cannot confirm that the spacecraft can complete the task as designed, NASA leadership may have to reconsider the mission plan or change its launch schedule. It will take more than five years for the Europa Clipper to reach Jupiter after its launch.