A Buoyancy-Driven Ocean Glider for Europa: Glide Ratio, Profile Energy and Endurance Budget

The system named in the title is developed here as a worked design, derived from the physics of its operating environment and reported throughout as SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED. The glider is a civilian science vehicle for long-duration measurement of temperature, salinity and currents inside Europa's ocean; it carries oceanographic sensors only. The deposited computation script produces every number in the paper from stated inputs; among its results are hull pressure at profile floor of 59.5 megapascals, buoyancy engine energy per cycle of 432.9 kilojoules and profiles per charge of 14 profiles. The study assembles component budgets for mass and power, examines how the design behaves away from its design point, and closes with an explicit statement of what the sizing does not establish.