There are some headlines out there about a joint NASA/ESA Europa lander that are misleading, including Futurism's "It's Official...", etc.
The story: NASA/congress want to check out Europa with an orbiter Europa Clipper. Congress likes this. They also want a lander that can do X Y and Z. People run the numbers and say they can only tack on a small lander that can do X and that'll cost almost 1B$ extra. Congress decides "nope, separate lander, let's just get Clipper approved"
So NASA asks ESA "can you drum up a proposal for a joint lander that together we can afford?". ESA says yes, and on 4/24/17 they announced/put out this basic proposal for NASA to review, tweak, and agree on.
What is true: joint lander PROPOSAL
What is fake in the news: Nobody has agreed or joined forces, things are being evaluated not planned, nothing is official. This is just the middle of a back and forth of the organizations deciding if they want to do this.
I hate false news and clickbait headlines, especially in a respectable scientific field like spaceflight. I hope people take a cue and post the real story instead of giving these bad journalists our clicks and readership.
Submitted April 26, 2017 at 01:50PM by zeekzeek22 http://ift.tt/2oK9hMT
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