Argus: A New Frontiers mission to observe Io

Mathematics – Logic

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System. By investigating its active volcanism, we may address fundamental questions concerning habitability of bodies like Europa and Enceladus that exhibit significant amounts of tidal heating. Investigating Io's volcanism also has implications for constraining processes on the early Earth and other terrestrial bodies that may have had a magma ocean.
We present a study of a New Frontiers class mission to Io called Argus. The Argus mission would employ a high-inclination Jovicentric orbit and, over a two-year period, the spacecraft would encounter Io 40 times at 100 km altitude closest approach. Lower-altitude flybys may be possible toward the end of the mission duration. The spacecraft would employ ASRGs for power and utilize radiation-hardened technology developed for a presumed outer planets flagship mission.
The payload on Argus would consist of five instruments: a narrow angle camera, a thermal imager, a near-IR imaging spectrometer, a UV spectrometer and an ion and neutral mass spectrometer. The expected science data to be returned would include: a global map of Io at 1 km resolution, with local and stereo imaging down to 10 m resolution, a global map of surface mineralogical composition at 3 km resolution with targeted observations down to 300 m resolution, a global heat flow map with resolution down to 10 km, UV images of multiple volcanic plumes and in-situ measurements of plume and atmospheric compositions.
This mission concept study was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration during NASA's 20th Annual Planetary Science Summer School.

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