17 Sep 2015

NASA's new flagship mission to Europa

From Nine To Noon, 9:36 am on 17 September 2015

Dr. Louise Prockter is a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, in the US. She has been involved in several robotic space missions, from the planning and implementation stages through to analysis of data. Her primary research uses spacecraft images to investigate the surface geology and history of icy moons, particularly Europa, one of Jupiter's largest satellites. Europa is thought to contain a vast salty liquid water ocean beneath an icy crust, making it a target of interest as a potentially habitable world. Louise is the Deputy Project Scientist on NASA's new flagship mission to Europa, which is in the formulation stage, and is planned to launch in the early part of the next decade.