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Europa Explorer is a project I have been working on to create a game inspired by real world science. You drive a robotic probe exploring the ocean on the moon Europa. You can download the alpha build from www.EuropaExplorerGame.com or Itch. This is a solo dev project by myself, so it is self promotion, but not for profit, so hopefully this post is within the forum rules. I have been doing bi-weekly video updates on my progress. If you want more info. Alpha 1 Update - Tools Alpha 2 Update - Systems Alpha 3 Update - World

The latest NASA budget suggests the Europa Clipper, an orbiter mission to the Jovian-system to study Europa, won’t fly on the SLS, but instead on commercial rockets: https://mobile.twitter.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1105131948903747584 However, instead of just an orbiter mission, by using commercial rockets, we can do it as an actual lander mission at a fraction of the cost of the SLS-based orbiter mission. In fact, it could be so low cost so as to be fully privately financed and at a profit. http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2015/02/low-cost-europa-lander-missions.html This written in 2015. Since then the F9 has been increases in payload nearly 50% and the FH by nearly 25%. So the landers could be made larger or more capable in-space stages could be used to shorten the flight time. I had assumed that the Falcon Heavy couldn't carry the full Europa Clipper orbiter at 6 ton gross mass to Jupiter. And speculation had been the addition of a Star 48 solid-stage would allow the EC mission on a FH but it would require an Earth gravity-assist that would lengthen the flight time to 6 years. However, I was surprised when I ran the numbers that the upgraded version of the FH could do the mission with plenty of margin with the addition of one of the existing cryogenic upper stages. The extra margin would actually allow you to shorten the flight time from the 2.7 years expected with the SLS. Bob Clark

OK this was a lot of work

I recently saw this picture And this lead me to the realization that Kerbol is an Ultra-cool Red dwarf star smaller than Trappist-1 (which means that its a Class-T Star.) and can you even see kerbin and the mun?

first of all sorry for my English. I am Spanish and use google translator. Hi, I wanted explcar like playing KSP with the PS4 and Europe, you only have to create a new account and put region usa. in my youtube channel you have the tutorial. the channel is tonicky things. why I not put the link do not want espamear. thank you very much and I hope they serve

I might have doomed my space program. I did it before 2010 - am I alright? A relatively safe landing in a Europan Canyon. Sadly, I am on the wrong side of the moon to see Jupiter. Perhaps a good thing if those pesky monoliths choose to detonate it again... Here are some craft pictures: The probe has ~2500 m/s of delta-v and uses Aerozine50 + NTO as hypergolic fuel. I put every science instrument that would fit on it, including SCANsat and some of DMagic's gear. The main instrument suites were the stockalike thermometer, barometer, gravity detector, etc. Now, to get this to Europa I made a knockoff Nova booster. Shown at a distance for scale - this does not really fit in the VAB! Stages 1 and 2 (8 and 6) get it into any orbit below about 400KM (I made it to a roughly 250km x 250km orbit with a few hundred m/s to spare). Stage 3 (4) gets it to Jupiter, with enough margin for course corrections. Stage 4 (2) was just barely enough to get me in a circular 400KM orbit of Europa, starting from just after my Jupiter Capture Burn. Stage 5 (0) is the Europa lander - it might be able to manage Luna if you make a perfect approach. Mine was not so optimal due to seat-of-the pants probe flying. The booster basically uses a mishmash of rocket technology. The RD-107s are a fair bit better than F1-As due to higher ISP, which at this scale offsets the TWR difference. I used a Kerolox first stage on a radial core to keep the rocket small enough to kind of fit in the VAB - I could have used ~30 SSMEs here but that would be a little ridiculous. The central core is 6 SSMEs - it is sized in tandem with the Radial boosters to provide enough power to reach orbit. The third stage is basically a 2.5x scale Saturn V third stage using two uprated J2-X engines - they were the best large, restartable Hydrolox engines I had. The Fourth stage uses 4 Aestus-II engines - they have a 340s Vacuum ISP which is very impressive for Hypergolic fuel. Kerolox or Hydrolox boils off on the way to Jupiter, and a solution to this was simply to use storable fuels. If I had no boiloff I would have used RL-10s here. The net result was managing to land on Europa with under 300m/s of delta-V to spare. I suspect that with better piloting this could make it to any of Jupiter's moons, with the higher gravity of Ganymede and Callisto offset by better approach and Jupiter-SOI maneuvering. It might need some gravity-assist help to get to Io due to the high approach velocities. Next up will be a mission to Neptune!

New flight of interplanetary space ship "Neil Armstrong", new mission into the cold and dark depths of space. At this time goal of expedition is Europe - the second moon of Jupiter, and one of few places in our solar system where life can exist.

I'm gonna take a step back from "Space colonies" and "Advanced propulsion", and look at this near-term potential mission instead. As we all know, life on Europa is likely, due to it's underice liquid water ocean, also, NASA wants to put an orbiter/lander there as well, but did you also know that NASA backed a Space Eel too? Cool, huh? Quote on how it would work: “The electricity gets used to electrolyze water, splitting the H2O into H2 and O2, which get stored internally in the body and limbs of the robot. The gases can then be mixed and ignited on demand, which could propel the bot in one of two ways: the explosions could either cause the limbs and body of the bot to expand and contract, allowing it to ‘swim,’ or you could use the explosions much more directly, directing the exhaust out the back of the robot, causing it to jet forward like an octopus.” I hope that our first Space Eel on Europa doesn't get eaten by an even more epic Alien Space Whale. Man, that would suck and be awesome at the same time, but as long as we take pics of it, I won't really mind. Links: Robotic Space Eel: http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/robotic-space-eel-may-one-day-explore-europas-seas-150512.htm NASA's Europa orbiter/lander: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/van-kane/20160105-nasa-europa-lander.html Evidence of liquid water under Europa: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/16nov_europa/ Here's an awesome video I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZo7_bR7V4U I also recommend watching "Europa Report" when you get the chance, it's a space thriller, but it's quite accurate for a space thriller (No, it's not sucky like Apollo 18 was).