Autonomous Surface Sampling for the Europa Lander Mission Concept

Europa, a moon of Jupiter, is a high-priority target for space exploration due to its potential to harbor life. A landed mission to collect and analyze samples for signs of life was developed over the past decade. Operationally, a critical challenge for such a mission is that the surface environment at the spatial scale of the lander is not well-known, requiring that such a mission be capable of acquiring samples in a wide range of surface conditions. Furthermore, the 85.2 hour orbit of Europa around Jupiter limits direct-to-Earth communications to half the orbital period. Finally, power constraints and charged-particle irradiation could limit the lifetime of such a mission to several months. This article describes a major effort to develop hardware and software to enable such a Europa Surface mission that would operate with unprecedented autonomy. This multi-year effort leveraged development across multiple simulation and testbed venues, culminating in a field campaign on the Matanuska Glacier, Alaska, USA, where a cross-disciplinary team demonstrated autonomous end-to-end sampling activities with representative lander hardware.

木卫二（Europa）是木星的天然卫星，因其具备孕育地外生命的潜力，成为太空探索的高优先级目标。过去十年间，科研团队已研发出一款登陆木卫二、采集并分析生命迹象样本的任务方案。从工程操作维度而言，此类任务的核心挑战在于：着陆器作业尺度下的地表环境尚未得到充分探明，因此该任务需具备在多样化地表条件下采集样本的能力。此外，木卫二环绕木星的轨道周期为85.2小时，这使得其与地球的直接通信时长仅为轨道周期的一半。同时，电力约束与带电粒子辐射可能会将该任务的运行寿命限制在数月以内。本文详述了为该木卫二表面探测任务研发软硬件的系统性工作，该任务将实现前所未有的自主运行能力。这项历时多年的研发工作整合了多套模拟场景与测试平台的技术成果，最终在美国阿拉斯加州马塔努斯卡冰川开展野外验证行动：一支跨学科团队借助代表性着陆器硬件，完成了全流程自主采样活动的演示验证。

搜集汇总

背景与挑战

背景概述

该数据集记录了为欧罗巴着陆器任务概念开发的自主表面采样系统，包括硬件和软件的设计与测试。研究团队在阿拉斯加的Matanuska冰川进行了实地测试，验证了系统在多种表面条件下的自主采样能力。