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Missions to explore Europa have been imagined ever since the Voyager mission first suggested that Europa was geologically very young. Subsequently, Galileo supplied fascinating new insights into that satellite's secrets. The Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO) would be the NASA-led portion of the Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM), an international mission with orbiters developed by NASA, ESA and possibly JAXA. JEO would address a very important subset of the complete EJSM science objectives and is designed to function alone or in conjunction with ESA's Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter (JGO).

In 2007, a JPL Rapid Mission Architecture (RMA) analysis team identified and evaluated a broad set of mission architecture options for a suite of scientific exploration objectives targeting the Saturnian moon Enceladus. Primary science objectives were largely focused on examination of the driving mechanisms and extent of interactions by the plumes of Enceladus recently discovered by Cassini. Investigation of the architectural trade space spanned a wide range of options, from high-energy flybys of Enceladus as a re-instrumented expansion on the Cassini mission, to more complex, multi-element combinations of Enceladus orbiters carrying multiple variants of in-situ deployable systems. Trajectory design emerged as a critical element of the mission concepts, enabling challenging missions on Atlas V and Delta IV-Heavy class launch vehicles. Various Enceladus Flagship-class mission concepts identified were analyzed and compared against several first-order figures of merit, including mass, cost, risk, mission timeline, and associated science value with respect to accomplishment of the full set of science objectives. Results are presented for these comparative analyses and the characterization of the explored trade space.

This paper describes the analysis and design evolution of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter trajectory from launch to end-of-mission.

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This paper addresses the constraints, analysis and design evolution of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Primary Science Orbit.

This paper describes the analysis and design evolution of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter trajectory from launch to end-of-mission. The mission uses a combination of propulsive maneuvers and aerobraking techniques to deliver the orbiter to a low-altitude frozen orbit at Mars. The launch/arrival space for the 2005 Earth-Mars opportunity will be described as well as the particular launch strategy chosen for this mission. Details of the aerobraking profile will be provided. Finally, the Primary Science Orbit will be examined, and the trade-offs between science objectives and orbiter capability will be presented.

The orbit of the Magellan spacecraft will be circularized by aerobraking by the end of August, 1993. The nearly circular orbit is necessary to obtain meaningful gravity science at high latitudes.