Joint Europa Mission (JEM): A Multiscale, Multi-Platform Mission to Characterize Europa's Habitability and Search for Extant Life. A White Paper prepared for the NAS 2023-2032 Decadal Survey for Planetary Science and Astrobiology August 15th, 2020

Michel Blanc (1) , Olga Prieto-Ballesteros (2) , Nicolas André (1) , Javier Gomez-Elvira (2) , Geraint Jones (3) , Veerle Sterken (4, 5) , William Desprats (6, 1) , Leonid I. Gurvits (7, 8, 9) , Krishan Khurana (10) , Georges Balmino (11) , Aljona Blöcker (12) , Renaud Broquet (13) , Emma Bunce (14) , Cyril Cavel (13) , Gaël Choblet (15) , Geoffrey Colins (16) , Marcello Coradini (17) , John Cooper (18) , Dominic Dirkx (8) , D. Fontaine (19) , Philippe Garnier (1) , David Gaudin (6) , Paul Hartogh (20) , Hauke Hussmann (21) , Antonio Genova (22) , Luciano Iess (22) , Adrian Jäggi (5) , Sascha Kempf (23) , Norbert Krupp (20) , Luisa Lara (24) , Jérémie Lasue (1) , Valéry Lainey (25) , François Leblanc (26) , Jean-Pierre Lebreton (27) , Andrea Longobardo (28) , Ralph Lorenz (29) , Philippe Martins (30, 31, 32) , Zita Martins (33) , Jean-Charles Marty (34) , Adam Masters (35) , David Mimoun (6) , Ernesto Palumba (28) , Victor Parro (2) , Pascal Regnier (36) , Joachim Saur (37) , Adriaan Schutte (38) , Edward C. Sittler (18) , Tilman Spohn (21) , Ralf Srama (39) , Katrin Stephan (21) , Károly Szegő (40) , Federico Tosi (28) , Steve Vance (41) , Roland Wagner (21) , Tim Van Hoolst (42) , Martin Volwerk (43) , Jan-Erik Wahlund (34) , Frances Westall (44) , Peter Wurz (5)

1 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
2 CAB - Centro de Astrobiologia [Madrid]
3 MSSL - Mullard Space Science Laboratory
4 ETH Zürich - Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [Zürich]
5 University of Bern
6 ISAE-SUPAERO - Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace
7 JIVE ERIC - Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe
8 TU Delft - Delft University of Technology
9 CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science
10 IGPP - Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics [Los Angeles]
11 GET - Géosciences Environnement Toulouse
12 Department of Space and Plasma Physics [Stockholm]
13 Airbus Defence and Space [Les Mureaux]
14 University of Leicester
15 LPG - Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique [UMR 6112]
16 Wheaton College [Norton]
17 CSEO - Cyprus Space Exploration Organisation
18 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
19 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas
20 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
21 DLR - Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt [Berlin]
22 UNIROMA - Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" = Sapienza University [Rome]
23 LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics [Boulder]
24 IAA - Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
25 IMCCE - Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Ephémérides
26 HELIOS - LATMOS
27 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace
28 IAPS - Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali - INAF
29 APL - Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory [Laurel, MD]
30 IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris
31 INFRES - Département Informatique et Réseaux
32 RMS - Réseaux, Mobilité et Services
33 CQE - Centro de Quimica Estrutural
34 GRGS - Groupement de Recherche en Géodésie Spatiale
35 Imperial College London
36 Airbus Defence and Space [Taufkirchen]
37 Universität zu Köln = University of Cologne
38 SKA - Square Kilometre Array Organisation
39 Universität Stuttgart [Stuttgart]
40 Wigner Research Centre for Physics [Budapest]
41 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
42 ROB - Royal Observatory of Belgium [Brussels]
43 IWF - Space Research Institute of Austrian Academy of Sciences
44 CBM - Centre de biophysique moléculaire

In this White Paper we propose that NASA works with ESA and other potentially interested international partners to design and fly jointly an ambitious and exciting planetary mission to characterize Europa's habitability and search for bio-signatures in the environment of Europa (surface, subsurface and exosphere). A White Paper prepared for the NAS 2023-2032 Decadal Survey for Planetary Science and Astrobiology August 15th, 2020

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Michel Blanc, Olga Prieto-Ballesteros, Nicolas André, Javier Gomez-Elvira, Geraint Jones, et al.. Joint Europa Mission (JEM): A Multiscale, Multi-Platform Mission to Characterize Europa's Habitability and Search for Extant Life. A White Paper prepared for the NAS 2023-2032 Decadal Survey for Planetary Science and Astrobiology August 15th, 2020. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 2021, 53 (4), pp.e-id. 380. ⟨10.3847/25c2cfeb.a4c47358⟩. ⟨insu-03566189⟩