Journal Article

SUDA: A SUrface Dust Analyser for Compositional Mapping of the Galilean Moon Europa

Yoke, Camille, Bortfeldt, Susan, Stanley, Jared, Hsu, Hsian-Wen, Ebuen, Donrich, Oaida, Bogdan, Lampe, Alexander, Gurst, Scott, Cassidy, Timothy, Zolotov, Mikhail Y., Hoxie, Vaughn, Lankton, Mark, Levin, Zuni, DeVito, Elz, Kien, Mark, Williams, Ethan, Wade, Stacy, Goode, William, Fowle, Maxwell, Kohnert, Rick, Sioeng, Jason, Pilewskie, Kathrine, Srama, Ralf, Wuerthner, Corinne, Sternovsky, Zoltan, Hubbell, Karl, Knappmiller, Scott, Altobelli, Nicolas, Schmidt, Jürgen, Yehle, Alan, Faber, Nat, Oberg, Samuel, James, David, Lev-Tov, Sean, Lowry, Gwyneth, Ulibarri, Zach, Newcomb, Gregory, Napoleoni, Maryse, Briois, Christelle, Frank, Wendy, Polson, Shawn, Bryant, Karen, Fisher, Melanie, Fitton, Polly, Tucker, Scott, Curtin, Alexandra, Gudipati, Murthy S., Grün, Eberhard, Fontanese, John, Crotser, David, Summers, David, Southworth, Ben S., Hillier, Jonathan K., Brennan, Nat, Bouwman, Jordy, O’Brien, Leela, Postberg, Frank, Belting, Chris, Haselschwardt, Sally, Tobie, Gabriel, Khawaja, Nozair, Horanyi, Mihaly, Tracy, Anthony, Cable, Morgan L., Miller, Marc, Simolka, Jonas, McGinn, Crystal, Ware, Alexandria, Henderson, Bryana

2025

Overview

The Surface Dust Analyser (SUDA) is a mass spectrometer onboard the Europa Clipper mission for investigating the surface composition of the Galilean moon Europa. Atmosphereless planetary moons such as the Galilean satellites are wrapped into a ballistic dust exosphere populated by tiny samples from the moon’s surface produced by impacts of fast micrometeoroids. SUDA will measure the composition of such surface ejecta during close flybys of Europa to obtain key chemical signatures for revealing the satellite’s composition such as organic molecules and salts, history, and geological evolution. Because of their ballistic orbits, detected ejecta can be traced back to the surface with a spatial resolution roughly equal to the instantaneous altitude of the spacecraft. SUDA is a Time-Of-Flight (TOF), reflectron-type impact mass spectrometer, optimized for a high mass resolution which only weakly depends on the impact location. The instrument will measure the mass, speed, charge, elemental, molecular, and isotopic composition of impacting grains. The instrument’s small size of 268 mm × 250 mm × 171 mm , radiation-hard design, and rather large sensitive area of 220 cm 2 matches well the challenging demands of the Clipper mission.

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands,Springer Nature B.V,Springer Verlag
• Subject: Aerospace Technology and Astronautics / Astrochemistry / Astrophysics and Astroparticles / Chemical composition / Dust / Ejecta / Europa / Exosphere / Flyby missions / Galilean satellites / Geological mapping / Isotope composition / Jupiter / Jupiter satellites / Lunar dust / Lunar surface / Mass spectrometers / Mass spectrometry / Micrometeoroids / Moon / Organic chemistry / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Planetary composition / Planetary satellites / Planetology / Satellites / Sciences of the Universe / Space Exploration and Astronautics / Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics / Spacecraft / Spatial resolution