TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating Europa’s Radiation Environment with the Europa Clipper Radiation Monitor
AU - Meitzler, Richard
AU - Jun, Insoo
AU - Blase, Ryan
AU - Cassidy, Timothy
AU - Clark, Roger
AU - Cochrane, Corey
AU - Fix, Sam
AU - Gladstone, Randy
AU - Goldsten, John
AU - Gudipati, Murthy
AU - Hand, Kevin
AU - Henderson, Bryana
AU - Jia, Xianzhe
AU - Kammer, Joshua
AU - Kollmann, Peter
AU - McEwen, Alfred
AU - Meyer, Heather
AU - Nordheim, Tom
AU - Paranicas, Chris
AU - Paty, Carol
AU - Retherford, Kurt
AU - Roussos, Elias
AU - Rymer, Abigail
AU - Smith, Todd
AU - Westlake, Joe
AU - Yokley, Zach
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2023/10
Y1 - 2023/10
N2 - We present an overview of the radiation environment monitoring program planned for the Europa Clipper mission. The harsh radiation environment of Jupiter will be measured by a dedicated Radiation Monitor (RadMon) subsystem, yielding mission accumulative Total Ionizing Dose (TID) and instantaneous electron flux measurements with a 1-Hz cadence. The radiation monitoring subsystem is comprised of a stand alone sensor assembly along with distributed TID assemblies at various locations on the spacecraft. The sensor assembly itself is made of a TID sensor stack using the Metal-Oxide Semiconducting Field-Effect Transistor (MOSFET) and a Charge Rate Monitor (CRM) that uses a stack of bulk charge collection plates. The TID measurements will provide the critical information about the overall radiation levels relevant to the degradation of electronics over time, and the electron flux data can serve as a proxy for the Internal ElectroStatic Discharge (IESD) environment by measuring the >∼1 MeV electron environment. In addition, the radiation monitoring subsystem data will be augmented by serendipitous radiation data from science instruments onboard. This will be enabled by careful modeling and analysis of opportunistic background data from potentially the following instruments: Europa Imaging System (EIS), Europa-Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS), Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE), MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration (MASPEX), Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS), and SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA). Based on the current analysis, these instruments will be most sensitive to >1 MeV electrons. As such, the high-energy electron data obtained by the radiation monitoring subsystem will be qualitatively and quantitatively enhanced by the high-energy electron data acquired by the instruments. The holistic radiation monitoring program for the mission will be an extensive collaboration among many teams across the flight and payload systems. Although the radiation monitoring subsystem itself is an engineering resource for the mission, the collective data from the mission can also be used to improve the scientific understanding of the Jovian magnetosphere and the high-energy electron environment near Europa, where the motion of charged particles is perturbed by the local electromagnetic environment. The data could also help in the understanding of the radiation modification of Europa surface compounds, which could subsequently help guide lab experiments to aid in understanding the origin and evolution of surface materials and in constraining the interpretation of observational data. To this end, the radiation monitoring subsystem is a useful resource for helping address the Europa Clipper mission’s primary goal of assessing the habitability of Europa.
AB - We present an overview of the radiation environment monitoring program planned for the Europa Clipper mission. The harsh radiation environment of Jupiter will be measured by a dedicated Radiation Monitor (RadMon) subsystem, yielding mission accumulative Total Ionizing Dose (TID) and instantaneous electron flux measurements with a 1-Hz cadence. The radiation monitoring subsystem is comprised of a stand alone sensor assembly along with distributed TID assemblies at various locations on the spacecraft. The sensor assembly itself is made of a TID sensor stack using the Metal-Oxide Semiconducting Field-Effect Transistor (MOSFET) and a Charge Rate Monitor (CRM) that uses a stack of bulk charge collection plates. The TID measurements will provide the critical information about the overall radiation levels relevant to the degradation of electronics over time, and the electron flux data can serve as a proxy for the Internal ElectroStatic Discharge (IESD) environment by measuring the >∼1 MeV electron environment. In addition, the radiation monitoring subsystem data will be augmented by serendipitous radiation data from science instruments onboard. This will be enabled by careful modeling and analysis of opportunistic background data from potentially the following instruments: Europa Imaging System (EIS), Europa-Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS), Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE), MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration (MASPEX), Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS), and SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA). Based on the current analysis, these instruments will be most sensitive to >1 MeV electrons. As such, the high-energy electron data obtained by the radiation monitoring subsystem will be qualitatively and quantitatively enhanced by the high-energy electron data acquired by the instruments. The holistic radiation monitoring program for the mission will be an extensive collaboration among many teams across the flight and payload systems. Although the radiation monitoring subsystem itself is an engineering resource for the mission, the collective data from the mission can also be used to improve the scientific understanding of the Jovian magnetosphere and the high-energy electron environment near Europa, where the motion of charged particles is perturbed by the local electromagnetic environment. The data could also help in the understanding of the radiation modification of Europa surface compounds, which could subsequently help guide lab experiments to aid in understanding the origin and evolution of surface materials and in constraining the interpretation of observational data. To this end, the radiation monitoring subsystem is a useful resource for helping address the Europa Clipper mission’s primary goal of assessing the habitability of Europa.
KW - Charge Rate Monitor
KW - Europa Clipper mission
KW - RadFET
KW - RadMon
KW - Radiation Monitor
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U2 - 10.1007/s11214-023-01003-8
DO - 10.1007/s11214-023-01003-8
M3 - Review article
SN - 0038-6308
VL - 219
JO - Space Science Reviews
JF - Space Science Reviews
IS - 7
M1 - 61
ER -