Physics 360 - NASA's Europa Multiple Flyby Mission
Spring 2017 - Schedule

Class will meet in Appleton Hall of Numbers room 117 Thursday 1-4pm.

Required Texts:

• Chapter 19 by Chyba and Phillips in "Planets and Life" eds. Sullivan and Baross, Cambridge Press, 2007. (36 pages, pdf will be provided)
• Europa Study Final Report 201 pp.
• Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars. 304 pp.
• Websites, presentations, and other team reports as indicated in the daily schedule, below
• Journal articles and other sources for final projects

• Mastery of the Communication goal of the Physics department learning outcomes, which some students may only see in the 2-credit required senior seminar course. In this course, students will discuss, present, and write about the Europa mission. See goals 5 and 6, below.
• Dynamic learning (as described in the College Learning Outcomes) about the Europa mission. In this course, students will participate in a real-world science project, which only some students currently do by attending a summer research program or other independent research. See goals 7 and 8, below.

1. Understand and explain why Europa is such an interesting location and why planetary scientists made it a top exploration priority.
2. Explain the science goals of the Europa mission and how the scientific instruments and measurements will accomplish those goals.
3. Experience how science teams work together, and with engineering teams, to design and implement a spacecraft mission
4. Work in groups implementing the rules and techniques put forward by the Europa science team (similar to College Learning outcome for Global Citizenship - diverse groups and power structures)
5. Participate in class activities, including reading assignments, guest lectures, discussions, and field trips, as a self-motivated and independent learner, able to determine what they don't know and searching for help
6. Identify and communicate, in class discussions, presentations, and in writing, new knowledge and gaps in understnding
7. Describe, in detail, the context, goals, and possibilities for the Europa mission
8. Evaluate the circumstances in a disagreement among the team, outline feasible solutions, and make a reccomendation

• Attendance & Participation (demonstrating preparation): 30%
• Homework: 30%
• Mid-semester project: 15%
• Final Project: 25%

Class assignments:

• Week 1 - Introduction

  Goals for today:

  • Introduce the topic of the class
  • Go over course requirements and the syllabus
    • Communication is a major goal of the course. What does that look like?
    • Participation is a large component, how can we get everyone involved in every class period?
  • Introduce Europa: What is it? What are the important science questions?
  • Introduce the Europa mission: What are the instruments? Why?
  • Introduce the MER mission

  Before class:

  • Read the following websites, watch videos, click on links:
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Multiple-Flyby_Mission
    • http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-mission/: Read and watch video
    • http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/europa/home.cfm: including links for "About Europa" and "Europa FAQ"
    • http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/europa: watch the movie and follow links for "In Depth" and "FAQ"
    • http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/overview/
    • Europa mission presentation
    • What other resources for either Europa or MER can you find?
  • Discussion questions: Before 9am on Thursday, January 12th, send an e-mail to the instructor with answers to the following questions. In class, be prepared to discuss and defent your answers.
    1. What are some of the biggest differences between the Mars and Europa missions (MER and Clipper)?
    2. In what ways are the two missions similar? Instruments? Science Questions?
    3. Pick one of the instruments (besides the cameras) on either mission. Be able to briefly describe the instrument and what type of science questions it can answer. Why did you choose this instrument?
    4. What questions do you have about Europa, Mars, or the missions?
    5. What do you hope to get out of this class? Why are you taking it?
    6. How can we get everyone involved in every class discussion? What techniques have you used in other classes?
    7. What is the best way for you to demonstrate what you learned in this course? You might want to break this up in terms of course goals: How can you demonstrate working in groups? How can you show the knowledge you gained? What skills do you hope to gain?
    8. Related: What would be a good mid-term assessment? A test? A paper? Presentation? Something else? Crazy ideas will be entertained.
    9. What do you want to know about how the class operates? There is currently no class syllabus. Do we need one? What should it include?

  In class:

  • Part 1: Go over course
  • Part 2: Julie give brief overview talk about Europa and lead class discussion
  • Discuss out of class activities (talks, movies, etc.) and how they can fit into the course.
  • Reminder that you need the course textbook NOW - reading starts next week.

• Week 2 - Europa & Life

  Goals for today:

  • Apply physics principles to problems about Europa
  • Understand the interesting science questions about Europa

  Before class:

  • Read chapter 19 by Chyba and Phillips in "Planets and Life" eds. Sullivan and Baross, Cambridge Press, 2007. (36 pages, pdf)
  • Problem Set:
    1. Why is it important that Io, Europa, and Ganymede are in an orbital resonance?
    2. Why is Europa's space envirnoment important?
    3. Show that a Europa with a silicate interior with the same densidy of Io, plus a 120 km thick H2O layer gives an average density similar to that of Europa.
    4. Find images, besides the ones in the paper, for each type of Europan geologic surface.
    5. What does Europa's surface geology tell us about its interior?
    6. From the other equations in the paper, derive equation 19.4, be sure to include explanations for each step
    7. Define nonsynchronous rotation.
    8. Use equation 19.8 to scale fro the net tidal heating rate for Io to Europa's silicate/metal interior.
    9. What are spherical harmonics? Specifically, list through second degree.
    10. Plot the thermal conductivity of ice as a function of temperature (Eq. 19.21). What is k for reasonable temperatures on Europa (surface and interior)?
    11. From the other equations in the paper, derive equation 19.23, be sure to include explanations for each step
    12. Plot the temperature of ice as a function of depth (eq. 19.28)
    13. What, exactly, are the differences between eq. 19.29 and 19.30, and care needs to be taken when?
    14. Find another passage of interest in the paper and elaborate on it - perform a missing step in a calculation, plug in some numbers, connect to some class you've taken, etc.
    15. Based on this paper, what do yout think is the most important observation that can be made by a Europa mission? Be sure to defend your answer.
  • Students must have attempted all problems before class, but we will spend class time going over the problems. Final answers will be due a few days after class. Send a draft of solutions, with a list of questions to go over in class to help with the rest, via e-mail to the instructor by 9 am on the day of class. Final solutions due Monday morning at 9 am via e-mail.

  In class:

  • Go around the room and discuss what each student leanred this week, particularly from outside of class activities. Some possible ideas for outside of class:
    • Articles about working in STEM, like this one
    • Lectures, like the UCR Science Lecture Series. The next one, on February 1st, is by Kevin Hand, who also works on the Europa mission.
    • Papers referenced in the assigned paper.
    • Videos of historical moments, such as President Clinton's 1996 remarks on the possible discovery of life on Mars as mentioned in "Seeing Like a Rover"
  • Go over problem set
  • Break
  • Go over homework from last week that we didn't get to
  • Determine discussion questions for next week.

• Week 3 - How science teams work

  Goals for today:

  • Discuss how science teams work and how images are interpreted
  • How do scientists interact with others? (Is there such a thing as a stupid question?)

  Before class:

  • Read Seeing Like a Rover chapters 1-4 (~ half of the book)
  • Guided discussion/writing questions will be assigned in advance and due a few days before class.

  Goals for today:

  • Discuss what the Europa science team should/should not do

  In class:

  • Discuss how science teams work and how images are interpreted
  • Discuss how the Mars Rover instruments are different from the Europa mission instruments

• Week 4 - Visit from Dr. Janet Vertesi

  Before class:

  • Read the rest of the Seeing Like a Rover book
  • Based on the reading, what are some things the Europa team should and should not do? Write up due before class
  • What questions would you have for Dr. Vertesi?

  In class:

  • Discuss Europa science team rules. Do you agree/disagree? Discuss why each rule is in place. What are we trying to accomplish?
  • Visit, talk, and discussion with Dr. Janet Vertesi (~1-1.5 hour)

• Week 5 - The Europa mission - Part 1, visit from Dr. Bob Pappalardo, Europa Project scientist

  Goals for today:

  • Understand the Science questions the mission will address
  • Understand the payload, instruments, and mission design
  • Discuss the mission with the Europa Mission Project Scientist

  Before class:

  • Read the following websites:
    • About Robert Pappalardo
    • Q&A with Bob
    • JPL Summer opportunities
  • Other readings based on where the mission is at currently, what questions are we wrestling with, etc.?
  • Come up with questions for Bob. Questions due a few days before class.
  • Read the Europa Study Final Report - Sections C.1 (Science of Mission)-C.2 (Mission Concept) (pages 2-139)

  In class:

  • This Europa Study Final Report is incredibly dense, so take your time reading it, and make sure to take notes. I will assign discussion questions along with the reading and require that they come up with 3-5 questions about the reading that must be emailed to me in advance. We will go over the questions and answers during class.
  • Guest talk from Bob, plus discussion (likely 1-1.5 hours) [Note that Bob has already agreed to come out and give a talk, but the date has not been confirmed.]
  • Disscuss current status of mission, including discussions and questions
  • Discuss summer research opportunities at JPL

• Week 6 - The Europa mission - Part 2

  Goals for today:

  • Understand how the current mission differs from the one in the 2012 study. Why did the mission change?
  • Understand what science questions the mission will answer, what instruments and data will be used to answer them, and how (Science Tracibility Matrix)

  Before class:

  • Read the Europa Study Final Report - Sections C.3 (Programmatics)-C.2 (Appendicest) (pages 140-201)
  • Go over websites and talk from first day about the current mission design
  • Write a reflection on how the current mission differs from the one in the 2012 study. What changed? Why?

  In class:

  • Go over student reflections, summarize, and discuss
  • Go over Science Tracibility Matrix. Discuss what could be possible outcomes of each instrument and how that would answer the science question
  • Discuss current status of mission and changes

• Week 7 - OPAG

  Goals for today:

  • What is OPAG?
  • What role did it play in defining the Europa mission?

  Before class:

  • http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/
  • Surf the previous website to answer the above questions. Whose talks do you want to see/hear?

  In class:

  Call in to the OPAG meeting using WebEx

• Week 8 - Instrument overview

  Before class:

  • Go over presentations about the Europa Mission given to the 2015 NASA Outer Planets Assessment Group (11 presentations)
  • Will replace this by longer, more detailed presentations, if available and released to the public.
  • Choose 3 instruments and/or science goals (from STM) which most fascinate you. For each, explain what you find interesting, and why. Also, explain why the instrument is necessary or why the science goal is so important.

  Goals for today:

  • Discuss the engineering of the instruments on the spacecraft

  In class:

  • Discuss each instrument and the science goals for each
  • Determine groups for final projects. Each group will focus on a single instrument or science question. The final project will be either computational (a model to answer the science question) or experimental (building a mock-up or design of a piece of an instrument) or analytical (do a calculation to answer the science question).

• Week 9 - Determine group final projects

  Before class:

  • Before class, each group must come up a description of their final project and a list of resources (such as papers) needed
  • Possible final project ideas:
    • Using data from an instrument similar to one on the Europa mission, write computer code that analyses the data
    • Determine exactly how data from a specific set of instruments can address one of the science goals. Come up with possible data and what that would imply for the science quesion. (uses science tracibility matrix.)
    • Design and build some component of one of the instruments and take data with it.

  Goals for today:

  • Discuss the final projects and help the students get the resources they need

  In class:

  • Work on getting resources. At the end of class, each group should have at least 3-5 papers on their chosen topic.

• Week 10 - Lunar and Planetary Science Conference & Group reports

  Before class:

  • Continue working on group projects
  • Read abstracts about Europa and the Europa mission from LPSC
  • Each group must submit an annotated bibliography and question for their final project. Each student must be assigned a specific role on the project.

  Goals for today:

  • Experience a national science conference

  In class:

  • View talks about Europa and the Europa Science mission (recorded or live from LPSC)
  • Skype with mission scientists at LPSC

• Week 11 - All day Field Trip to JPL

  Before class:

  • Continue working on group projects

  Goals for today:

  • Visit JPL

  In class:

  • Visit and tour of Europa mission offices and labs at JPL. Dr. Cynthia Phllips, Europa Project Science Communications Lead, has already agreed to give us a tour. The date and exact itinerary are yet to be set.

• Week 12 - TBA

  Before class:

  Goals for today:

  • TBA

• Week 13 - Final group presentations

  Before class:

  • First draft of final project must be complete and ready to present to the class. The science question must be answered at this point.

  Goals for today:

  • Presentations. (After questions and comments, groups can edit their papers, which are due during finals week.)