.Media Get Close-Up
of NASA’s Jupiter-Bound Europa Clipper
April 11, 2024
Members of the media visited a clean room at JPL April 11 to get a close-up look at NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and interview members of the mission team. The spacecraft is expected to launch in October 2024 on a six-year journey to the Jupiter system, where it will study the ice-encased moon Europa. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Excitement is mounting as the largest spacecraft NASA has ever built
for a planetary mission gets readied for an October launch.
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California
are running final tests and preparing the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft for the next leg of its journey: launching from NASA’s
Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Europa Clipper, which will orbit Jupiter and
focus on the planet’s ice-encased moon Europa, is expected to leave JPL later
this spring. Its launch period opens on Oct. 10.
Members of the media put on “bunny suits” — outfits to protect the
massive spacecraft from contamination — to see Europa Clipper up close in JPL’s
historic Spacecraft Assembly
Facility on Thursday, April 11. Project Manager
Jordan Evans, Launch-to-Mars Mission Manager Tracy Drain, Project Staff Scientist
Samuel Howell, and Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations Cable Harness Engineer
Luis Aguila were on the clean room floor, while Deputy Project Manager Tim
Larson, and Mission Designer Ricardo Restrepo were in the gallery above to
explain the mission and its goals.
Planning of the mission began in 2013, and Europa Clipper was officially confirmed by NASA as a mission in 2019. The trip to Jupiter is expected to take
about six years, with flybys of Mars and Earth. Reaching the gas giant in 2030,
the spacecraft will orbit Jupiter while flying by Europa dozens of times,
dipping as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the moon’s surface to gather
data with its powerful suite of science instruments. The information will help scientists learn about the ocean beneath
the moon’s icy shell, map Europa’s surface composition and geology, and hunt
for any potential plumes of water vapor that may be venting from the crust.
“After over a decade of hard work and problem-solving, we’re so proud
to show the nearly complete Europa Clipper spacecraft to the world,” said
Evans. “As critical components came in from institutions across the globe, it’s
been exciting to see parts become a greater whole. We can’t wait to get this
spacecraft to the Jupiter system.”
At the event, a cutaway model showing the moon’s layers and a globe of
the moon helped journalists learn why Europa is such an interesting object of
study. On hand with the details were Project Staff Scientist and Assistant
Science Systems Engineer Kate Craft from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics
Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and, from JPL, Project Scientist Robert
Pappalardo, Deputy Project Scientist Bonnie Buratti, and Science Communications
Lead Cynthia Phillips.
Beyond Earth, Europa is considered one of the most promising
potentially habitable environments in our solar system. While Europa Clipper is
not a life-detection mission, its primary science goal is to determine whether
there are places below the moon’s icy surface that could support life.
When the main part of the spacecraft arrives at Kennedy Space Center in
a few months, engineers will finish preparing Europa Clipper for launch on a
SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, attaching its giant solar arrays and carefully
tucking the spacecraft inside the capsule that rides on top of the rocket. Then
Europa Clipper will be ready to begin its space odyssey.
More
About the Mission
Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the
thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its surface interactions with the ocean
below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The
mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand
the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development
of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied
Physics Laboratory (APL) for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions
Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama,
executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
Find more information about Europa here:
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