What's it about?

The Jupiter environment presents many unique challenges to the optomechanical design of the Europa Imaging System (EIS) Wide Angle Camera (WAC) for NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission. EIS is designed to address Europa Clipper’s highpriority geology, composition, ice shell and ocean science objectives.

The WAC is an F/5.75, 46-mm focal length 8-lens refractive telescope with a 48° x 24° FOV and a 218-μrad IFOV, resulting in 11-m pixel scale from 50-km altitude over a 44-km-wide swath. The 4096 x 2048 x 10 μm sensor and 6-color stripe spectral filters enable two imaging modes, framing for global mapping and plume searches, and time delay integration for color imaging (400-1050 nm) with three-line stereo topography. This paper describes the design, material selection, integration, and testing of the EIS WAC to survive the Jovian environment leading up to Europa Clipper integration in Summer 2022.