#Europa Clipper Begins Journey to Jupiter’s Icy Moon

[michaelgabrill]

Europa Clipper Begins Journey to Jupiters Icy Moon

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. Europa Clipper is the first mission designed to conduct a detailed study of Jupiter’s moon Europa to determine if it currently has habitable conditions. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles […] from NASA https://ift.tt/rdX2jDw

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Journey to a Water World: NASA’s Europa Clipper Is Ready to Launch

Find details about the launch sequences for the orbiter, which is targeting an Oct. 14 liftoff on its mission to search for ingredients of life at Jupiter’s moon Europa.

In less than 24 hours, NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is slated to launch from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket. Its sights are set on Jupiter’s ice-encased moon Europa, which the spacecraft will fly by 49 times, coming as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the surface as it searches for ingredients of life.

Launch is set for 12:06 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 14, with additional opportunities through Nov 6. Each opportunity is instantaneous, meaning there is only one exact time per day when launch can occur. Plans to launch Europa Clipper on Oct. 10 were delayed due to impacts of Hurricane Milton.

With its massive solar arrays extended, Europa Clipper could span a basketball court (100 feet, or 30.5 meters, tip to tip). In fact, it’s the largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for a planetary mission. The journey to Jupiter is a long one — 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) — and rather than taking a straight path there, Europa Clipper will loop around Mars and then Earth, gaining speed as it swings past.

The spacecraft will begin orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, and in 2031 it will start making those 49 science-focused flybys of Europa while looping around the gas giant. The orbit is designed to maximize the science Europa Clipper can conduct and minimize exposure to Jupiter’s notoriously intense radiation.

But, of course, before any of that can happen, the spacecraft has to leave Earth behind. The orbiter’s solar arrays are folded and stowed for launch. Testing is complete on the spacecraft’s various systems and its payload of nine science instruments and a gravity science investigation. Loaded with over 6,060 pounds (2,750 kilograms) of the propellant that will get Europa Clipper to Jupiter, the spacecraft has been encapsulated in the protective nose cone, or payload fairing, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, which is poised for takeoff from historic Launch Complex 39A.

Launch Sequences

The Falcon Heavy has two stages and two side boosters. After the side boosters separate, the core stage will be expended into the Atlantic Ocean. Then the second stage of the rocket, which will help Europa Clipper escape Earth’s gravity, will fire its engine.

Once the rocket is out of Earth’s atmosphere, about 50 minutes after launch, the payload fairing will separate from its ride, split into two halves, and fall safely back to Earth, where it will be recovered and reused. The spacecraft will then separate from the upper stage about an hour after launch. Stable communication with the spacecraft is expected by about 19 minutes after separation from the rocket, but it could take somewhat longer.

About three hours after launch, Europa Clipper will deploy its pair of massive solar arrays, one at a time, and direct them at the Sun.

Mission controllers will then begin to reconfigure the spacecraft into its planned operating mode. The ensuing three months of initial checkout include a commissioning phase to confirm that all hardware and software is operating as expected.

While Europa Clipper is not a life-detection mission, it will tell us whether Europa is a promising place to pursue an answer to the fundamental question about our solar system and beyond: Are we alone?

Scientists suspect that the ingredients for life — water, chemistry, and energy — could exist at the moon Europa right now. Previous missions have found strong evidence of an ocean beneath the moon’s thick icy crust, potentially with twice as much liquid water as all of Earth’s oceans combined. Europa may be home to organic compounds, which are essential chemical building blocks for life. Europa Clipper will help scientists confirm whether organics are there, and also help them look for evidence of energy sources under the moon’s surface.

More About Europa Clipper

Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its 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, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory 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; NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.

TOP IMAGE: Technicians encapsulated NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft inside payload fairings on Wednesday, Oct. 2, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The fairings will protect the spacecraft during launch as it begins its journey to explore Jupiter’s icy... Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

CENTRE IMAGE: A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with the Europa Clipper spacecraft aboard is seen at Launch Complex 39A as preparations continue for the mission, Sunday, Oct. 13, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA

LOWER IMAGE: This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in orbit at Jupiter as it passes over the gas giant’s icy moon Europa (lower right). Scheduled to arrive at Jupiter in April 2030, the mission will be the first to specifically target Europa for detailed science investigation. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

[beccajean1]

Last month NASA launched its long-awaited Europa Clipper, which will be one of the first missions to study Jupiter’s water world moon in detail. Since the early 70s, astronomers have found evidence that Europa contains a deep subsurface ocean under an icy outer layer, and many hoped that one day we might make it there to confirm it for ourselves. Europa Clipper represents the ultimate dream mission of astrobiologists, as the icy moon may contain ideal conditions for life floating in its massive ocean.

[hosizorayoukai]

Is there life under the ice? The Great Exploration Era of Jupiter's Ice Satellites, The Great Journey of the 2030s: The Complete and Uncut Story of the Great Journey

Exploring Jupiter's Icy Moons: The Great Journey of ESA's JUICE and NASA's Europa Clipper

Summary: Get ready for a thrilling journey to Jupiter’s icy moons! In the 2030s, two groundbreaking missions—ESA's JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) and NASA's Europa Clipper—will arrive in the Jupiter system to explore the intriguing ocean worlds of Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. These moons are believed to have vast liquid oceans beneath their icy surfaces, and could potentially harbor life.

ESA's JUICE will dive deep into the mysteries of these moons using advanced instruments to study their potential as habitats and their role in the broader Jupiter system. Scheduled to arrive in 2031 and enter Ganymede's orbit by 2034, JUICE will provide unparalleled insights into these distant worlds.

Meanwhile, NASA's Europa Clipper will focus on Europa, conducting nearly 50 close flybys to investigate its ice shell, subsurface ocean, and the moon's overall potential to support life. Flying as low as 16 miles above Europa's surface, Europa Clipper will map and analyze the moon like never before, helping us understand astrobiological possibilities beyond Earth.

Join us as we explore the Great Journey of modern space exploration, unlocking the secrets of these oceanic moons and redefining our understanding of life in the universe! Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more space exploration updates! 🌌🚀 

📝Table of Contents 📝📝 ------- 0:00 Launch of JUICE spacecraft 1:57 Europa Clipper launch 4:04 Europa Clipper arrives at Jupiter system 5:07 Spacecraft JUICE arrives at Ganymede 7:12 Coupled play by two spacecraft 9:30 Callisto probe count 10:26 Europa over 30 times 10:56 Europa over 40 11:15 Europa Clipper operation ends 11:42 Spacecraft JUICE enters Ganymede orbit 12:18 Announcement of results for both spacecraft

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Amazon Prime Video PR] “3022 (dubbed version)” movie https://amzn.to/3WRkUnx In the near future, when a colony begins to be built on Europa, a moon of Jupiter, the crew of the space station Pangaea loses communication with Earth and must solve the mystery of what happened. Go to Europa!

[Amazon Prime Video PR] “2010 (Subtitled)” movie https://amzn.to/4dIvCU6 Nine years after the Discovery incident, Dr. Floyd investigates Jupiter, encounters mysterious phenomena, and discovers signs of life on Europa. He receives a warning from the spirit of the Discovery's captain and carries out a mysterious mission.

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[scifigeneration]

Europa: there may be life on Jupiter's moon and two new missions will pave the way for finding it

by Gareth Dorrian

Enigmatic Europa. NASA

It’s brilliant news. In just over a decade, there will be two spacecraft exploring one of the most habitable worlds in the solar system – Jupiter’s moon Europa. That’s thanks to a recent announcement by NASA that the orbiter Europa Clipper has been given the go-ahead, scheduled to reach the moon at the beginning of the 2030s.

In April this year, the European Space Agency also approved the development of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), which is currently slated to reach the Jupiter system in 2029.

At the dawn of the space age, it was imagined that all life was ultimately dependent on energy from the sun. The frozen ice ball moons of the outer planets seemed unlikely abodes for any kind of life. Discoveries of thriving ecosystems at the bottom the oceans of Earth, relying on hydrothermal vents for both energy and molecular fuel, changed all that. Now we know that life can thrive in environments that are completely isolated from the sun.

Europa is thought to be able to harbor simple, microbial life in its liquid, internal ocean beneath its icy surface. That is because it has each of three essential prerequisites for life in abundance: a source of biochemically useful molecules, a source of energy and a liquid solvent (water) in which dissolved substances can chemically react with each other.

Europa’s energy comes from a combination of its slightly elliptical orbit about Jupiter and its gravitational interaction with two other moons. This combination of forces subjects Europa to a tidal variation in gravity with each orbit, causing it to flex and release heat, which prevents the water from freezing.

Europa’s biochemically useful molecules may come from impacts by comets or from deep within the moon’s rocky core.

Ice penetrating radar

Both Europa Clipper and JUICE will carry special radar instruments to probe beneath Europa’s surface ice. This is not a new technique, radar has been used since the 1970s to find sub-glacial lakes in Antarctica and, more recently, on Mars.

As it happens, Europa may offer an even more suitable environment in which to try this out because the colder ice gets, the more transparent it becomes to radar. Being so far from the sun, typical daytime surface temperatures at Europa are -170°C. The goal at Europa is to establish the depth at which the ice sheet gives way to a global ocean of liquid water. Current models predict that is at a depth of 15-25km.

Europa Clipper with Jupiter in the background. NASA/JPL-Caltech

However, liquid water may also be found much closer to the surface, which would be easier to get to. Evidence from Hubble Space Telescope images appear to show plumes of liquid water erupting from the southern hemisphere. Production of these plumes might function something like a volcano, with liquid water welling up from the ocean below.

Water, under sufficient pressure, will force its way through fractures and voids inside the ice, eventually reaching the surface to erupt as geysers. During this process, any liquid water that doesn’t quite make it to the surface may nonetheless fill voids and cracks within the ice, forming something very similar to the sub-glacial lakes of Mars and Antarctica.

The missions should be able to find these features if they exist. All of this contributes to one of the ultimate goals of these missions, which is to scout out the best location for a future lander which could one day drill through the ice and reach the enigmatic ocean realm beneath.

Gravity maps

Europa’s interior. NASA

Spacecraft traveling near the surface of a planet or moon can use slight changes in rocket speed to detect subtle variations in the gravitational field of that object. Such “gravitational anomalies” are caused by changes in the density of material under the planetary surface as the spacecraft flies overhead.

For example, denser rock that one might find in a mountain range can cause the spacecraft to experience a measurable extra gravitational tug. Detection of gravitational anomalies on Earth has been used for many years to identify subterranean structures such as oil fields, metal deposits and the famous dinosaur-destroying impact crater at Chixculub in Mexico.

JUICE and Europa Clipper will also be able to detect gravitational anomalies and potentially allow scientists to find interesting features at the bottom of the ocean. A smooth ocean floor with small gravitational anomalies would actually be a boon to the prospects of life, as it would imply more heat flow from the moon’s interior.

Getting through the ice

But to ultimately find life on Europa, we have to get beneath the ice by one day putting a lander on the surface, potentially carrying a submarine. Even if Europa Clipper and JUICE do identify where the ice is thinnest, this will be challenging.

Europa is close to Jupiter, meaning that spacecraft need lots of fuel to change their velocity enough that they can get out of the planet’s massive gravity field and enter into orbit about the moon. JUICE, in fact, will become the first spacecraft to perform this maneuver at Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s other moons, and it will use 3,000 kg of fuel to do it on the same journey.

There are also huge amounts of harmful radiation at Jupiter, which can damage spacecraft in the long run. Europa Clipper will, therefore, stay in long looping orbits about Jupiter, repeatedly taking it out of the radiation field. It will study Europa by instead performing flybys of the moon.

The lack of a substantial atmosphere at Europa poses another problem. It means we can’t slow a lander with heat shields and parachutes. Everything must be done with rockets, requiring yet more fuel. The lack of atmosphere also offers little protection from radiation while the lander is on the surface.

Even if a spacecraft survives a landing, there is the matter of the ice itself. Using a mechanical drill to bore through many miles of super-cold ice, which is as hard as granite, is unlikely. Instead, more exotic means of getting through are being considered, such as using lasers or heat from a nuclear reactor to melt through the ice.

Another consideration is that Europa, currently, is a pristine environment. That means these complex tasks must be done without inadvertently contaminating the ocean with pollutants from the spacecraft, or any terrestrial microbes which may have hitched a ride.

But one way or another, we will get there. The final challenge might then be ensuring that the spacecraft or submarine, having finally reached the ocean, doesn’t get eaten by something swimming around in the deep.

About The Author:

Gareth Dorrian is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Space Science at the University of Birmingham

This article is republished from our content partners over at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

[sciencespies]

Europa: there may be life on Jupiter's moon and two new missions will pave the way for finding it

https://sciencespies.com/space/europa-there-may-be-life-on-jupiters-moon-and-two-new-missions-will-pave-the-way-for-finding-it/

Europa: there may be life on Jupiter's moon and two new missions will pave the way for finding it

Enigmatic Europa. Credit: NASA

More

It’s brilliant news. In just over a decade, there will be two spacecraft exploring one of the most habitable worlds in the solar system—Jupiter’s moon Europa. That’s thanks to a recent announcement by NASA that the orbiter Europa Clipper has been given the go ahead, scheduled to reach the moon at the beginning of the 2030s.

  In April this year, the European Space Agency also approved development of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), which is currently slated to reach the Jupiter system in 2029.

At the dawn of the space age, it was imagined that all life was ultimately dependent on energy from the sun. The frozen ice ball moons of the outer planets seemed unlikely abodes for any kind of life. Discoveries of thriving ecosystems at the bottom the oceans of Earth, relying on hydrothermal vents for both energy and molecular fuel, changed all that. Now we know that life can thrive in environments that are completely isolated from the sun.

Europa is thought to be able to harbour simple, microbial life in its liquid, internal ocean beneath its icy surface. That is because it has each of three essential prerequisites for life in abundance: a source of biochemically useful molecules, a source of energy and a liquid solvent (water) in which dissolved substances can chemically react with each other.

Europa’s energy comes from a combination of its slightly elliptical orbit about Jupiter and its gravitational interaction with two other moons. This combination of forces subject Europa to a tidal variation in gravity with each orbit, causing it to flex and release heat, which prevents the water from freezing.

Europa’s biochemically useful molecules may come from impacts by comets or from deep within the moon’s rocky core.

Ice penetrating radar

Both Europa Clipper and JUICE will carry special radar instruments to probe beneath Europa’s surface ice. This is not a new technique, radar has been used since the 1970s to find sub-glacial lakes in Antarctica and, more recently, on Mars.

  More

More

As it happens, Europa may offer an even more suitable environment in which to try this out because the colder ice gets, the more transparent it becomes to radar. Being so far from the sun, typical daytime surface temperatures at Europa are -170°C. The goal at Europa is to establish the depth at which the ice sheet gives way to a global ocean of liquid water. Current models predicts that is at a depth of 15-25km.

However, liquid water may also be found much closer to the surface, which would be easier to get to. Evidence from Hubble Space Telescope images appear to show plumes of liquid water erupting from the southern hemisphere. Production of these plumes might function something like a volcano, with liquid water welling up from the ocean below.

Water, under sufficient pressure, will force its way through fractures and voids inside the ice, eventually reaching the surface to erupt as geysers. During this process, any liquid water that doesn’t quite make it to the surface may nonetheless fill voids and cracks within the ice, forming something very similar to the sub-glacial lakes of Mars and Antarctica.

The missions should be able to find these features if they exist. All of this contributes to one of the ultimate goals of these missions, which is to scout out the best location for a future lander which could one day drill through the ice and reach the enigmatic ocean realm beneath.

Gravity maps

Spacecraft travelling near the surface of a planet or moon can use slight changes in rocket speed to detect subtle variations in the gravitational field of that object. Such “gravitational anomalies” are caused by changes in the density of material under the planetary surface as the spacecraft flies overhead.

For example, denser rock that one might find in a mountain range can cause the spacecraft to experience a measureable extra gravitational tug. Detection of gravitational anomalies on Earth has been used for many years to identify subterranean structures such as oil fields, metal deposits and the famous dinosaur-destroying impact crater at Chixculub in Mexico.

JUICE and Europa Clipper will also be able to detect gravitational anomalies and potentially allow scientists to find interesting features at the bottom of the ocean. A smooth ocean floor with small gravitational anomalies would actually be a boon to the prospects of life, as it would imply more heat flow from the moon’s interior.

 Europa Clipper with Jupiter in the background. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

More

Getting through the ice

But to ultimately find life on Europa, we have to get beneath the ice by one day putting a lander on the surface, potentially carrying a submarine. Even if Europa Clipper and JUICE do identify where the ice is thinnest, this will be challenging.

Europa is close to Jupiter, meaning that spacecraft need lots of fuel to change their velocity enough that they can get out of the planet’s massive gravity field and enter into orbit about the moon. JUICE, in fact, will become the first spacecraft to perform this manoeuvre at Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s other moons, and it will use 3,000 kg of fuel to do it on the same journey.

There are also huge amounts of harmful radiation at Jupiter, which can damage spacecraft in the long run. Europa Clipper will therefore stay in long looping orbits about Jupiter, repeatedly taking it out of the radiation field. It will study Europa by instead performing flybys of the moon.

The lack of substantial atmosphere at Europa poses another problem. It means we can’t slow a lander with heat shields and parachutes. Everything must be done with rockets, requiring yet more fuel. The lack of atmosphere also offers little protection from radiation while the lander is on the surface.

Even if a spacecraft survives a landing, there is the matter of the ice itself. Using a mechanical drill to bore through many miles of super-cold ice, which is as hard as granite, is unlikely. Instead more exotic means of getting through are being considered, such as using lasers or heat from a nuclear reactor to melt through the ice.

Another consideration is that Europa, currently, is a pristine environment. That means these complex tasks must be done without inadvertently contaminating the ocean with pollutants from the spacecraft, or any terrestrial microbes which may have hitched a ride.

But one way or another, we will get there. The final challenge might then be ensuring that the spacecraft or submarine, having finally reached the ocean, doesn’t get eaten by something swimming around in the deep.

Join us on Facebook or Twitter for a regular update.

  Explore further

  Mission to Jupiter’s icy moon confirmed

Provided by The Conversation

  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Citation: Europa: there may be life on Jupiter’s moon and two new missions will pave the way for finding it (2019, August 28) retrieved 28 August 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-08-europa-life-jupiter-moon-missions.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

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[michaelgabrill]

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Liftoff! NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter

The massive spacecraft heads for Europa to search for signs of whether the ocean thought to exist beneath the moon’s icy shell could support life.

NASA’s Europa Clipper has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life. The spacecraft launched at 12:06 p.m. EDT Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The largest spacecraft NASA ever built for a mission headed to another planet, Europa Clipper also is the first NASA mission dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) on a trajectory that will leverage the power of gravity assists, first to Mars in four months and then back to Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026. After it begins orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times.

“Congratulations to our Europa Clipper team for beginning the first journey to an ocean world beyond Earth,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA leads the world in exploration and discovery, and the Europa Clipper mission is no different. By exploring the unknown, Europa Clipper will help us better understand whether there is the potential for life not just within our solar system, but among the billions of moons and planets beyond our Sun.”

Approximately five minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s second stage fired up and the payload fairing, or the rocket’s nose cone, opened to reveal Europa Clipper. About an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket. Ground controllers received a signal soon after, and two-way communication was established at 1:13 p.m. with NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. Mission teams celebrated as initial telemetry reports showed Europa Clipper is in good health and operating as expected.

“We could not be more excited for the incredible and unprecedented science NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will deliver in the generations to come,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and Europa Clipper’s scientific discoveries will build upon the legacy that our other missions exploring Jupiter — including Juno, Galileo, and Voyager — created in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”

The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa is about the size of our own Moon, but its interior is different. Information from NASA’s Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa’s ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.

If the mission determines Europa is habitable, it may mean there are more habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond than imagined.

“We’re ecstatic to send Europa Clipper on its way to explore a potentially habitable ocean world, thanks to our colleagues and partners who’ve worked so hard to get us to this day,” said Laurie Leshin, director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Europa Clipper will undoubtedly deliver mind-blowing science. While always bittersweet to send something we’ve labored over for years off on its long journey, we know this remarkable team and spacecraft will expand our knowledge of our solar system and inspire future exploration.”

In 2031, the spacecraft will begin conducting its science-dedicated flybys of Europa. Coming as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) to the surface, Europa Clipper is equipped with nine science instruments and a gravity experiment, including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras, and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water. As the most sophisticated suite of science instruments NASA has ever sent to Jupiter, they will work in concert to learn more about the moon’s icy shell, thin atmosphere, and deep interior.

To power those instruments in the faint sunlight that reaches Jupiter, Europa Clipper also carries the largest solar arrays NASA has ever used for an interplanetary mission. With arrays extended, the spacecraft spans 100 feet (30.5 meters) from end to end. With propellant loaded, it weighs about 13,000 pounds (5,900 kilograms).

In all, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper mission since it was formally approved in 2015.

“As Europa Clipper embarks on its journey, I’ll be thinking about the countless hours of dedication, innovation, and teamwork that made this moment possible,” said Jordan Evans, project manager, NASA JPL. “This launch isn’t just the next chapter in our exploration of the solar system; it’s a leap toward uncovering the mysteries of another ocean world, driven by our shared curiosity and continued search to answer the question, ‘are we alone?’”

More About Europa Clipper

Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its 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, NASA JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

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Europa Clipper: Millions of miles down, instruments deploying

NASA's Europa Clipper, which launched Oct. 14 on a journey to Jupiter's moon Europa, is already 13 million miles (20 million kilometers) from Earth. Two science instruments have deployed hardware that will remain at attention, extending out from the spacecraft, for the next decade—through the cruise to Jupiter and the entire prime mission.

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched it away from Earth's gravity, and now the spacecraft is zooming along at 22 miles per second (35 kilometers per second) relative to the sun.

Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission. It will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) to arrive at Jupiter in 2030 and in 2031 will begin a series of 49 flybys, using a suite of instruments to gather data that will tell scientists if the icy moon and its internal ocean have the conditions needed to harbor life.

For now, the information mission teams are receiving from the spacecraft is strictly engineering data (the science will come later), telling them how the hardware is operating. Things are looking good. The team has a checklist of actions the spacecraft needs to take as it travels deeper into space.

Boom times

Shortly after launch, the spacecraft deployed its massive solar arrays, which extend the length of a basketball court. Next on the list was the magnetometer's boom, which uncoiled from a canister mounted on the spacecraft body, extending a full 28 feet (8.5 meters).

To confirm that all went well with the boom deployment, the team relied on data from the magnetometer's three sensors. Once the spacecraft is at Jupiter, these sensors will measure the magnetic field around Europa, both confirming the presence of the ocean thought to be under the moon's icy crust and telling scientists about its depth and salinity.

On the radar

After the magnetometer, the spacecraft deployed several antennas for the radar instrument. Now extending crosswise from the solar arrays, the four high-frequency antennas form what look like two long poles, each measuring 57.7 feet (17.6 meters) long. Eight rectangular very-high-frequency antennas, each 9 feet (2.76 meters) long, were also deployed—two on the two solar arrays.

"It's an exciting time on the spacecraft, getting these key deployments done," said Europa Clipper project manager Jordan Evans of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "Most of what the team is focusing on now is understanding the small, interesting things in the data that help them understand the behavior of the spacecraft on a deeper level. That's really good to see."

Instrument checkout

The remaining seven instruments will be powered on and off through December and January so that engineers can check their health. Several instruments, including the visible imager and the gas and dust mass spectrometers, will keep their protective covers closed for the next three or so years to guard against potential damage from the sun during Europa Clipper's time in the inner solar system.

Mars-bound

Once all the instruments and engineering subsystems have been checked out, mission teams will shift their focus to Mars. On March 1, 2025, Europa Clipper will reach Mars's orbit and begin to loop around the Red Planet, using the planet's gravity to gain speed. (This effect is similar to how a ball thrown at a moving train will bounce off the train in another direction at a higher speed.) Mission navigators have already completed one trajectory correction maneuver, as planned, to get the spacecraft on the precise course.

At Mars, scientists plan to turn on the spacecraft's thermal imager to capture multicolored images of Mars as a test operation. They also plan to collect data with the radar instrument so engineers can be sure it's operating as expected.

The spacecraft will perform another gravity assist in December 2026, swooping by Earth before making the remainder of the long journey to the Jupiter system. At that time, the magnetometer will measure Earth's magnetic field, calibrating the instrument.

IMAGE: An artist’s concept of NASA’s Europa Clipper shows the spacecraft in silhouette against Europa’s surface, with the magnetometer boom fully deployed at top and the antennas for the radar instrument extending out from the solar arrays. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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NASA’s Europa Clipper Gets Set of Super-Size Solar Arrays

The largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for planetary exploration just got its ‘wings’ — massive solar arrays to power it on the journey to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft recently got outfitted with a set of enormous solar arrays at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Each measuring about 46½ feet (14.2 meters) long and about 13½ feet (4.1 meters) high, the arrays are the biggest NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission. They have to be large so they can soak up as much sunlight as possible during the spacecraft’s investigation of Jupiter’s moon Europa, which is five times farther from the Sun than Earth is.

The arrays have been folded up and secured against the spacecraft’s main body for launch, but when they’re deployed in space, Europa Clipper will span more than 100 feet (30.5 meters) — a few feet longer than a professional basketball court. The “wings,” as the engineers call them, are so big that they could only be opened one at a time in the clean room of Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where teams are readying the spacecraft for its launch period, which opens Oct. 10.

Flying in Deep Space

Meanwhile, engineers continue to assess tests conducted on the radiation hardiness of transistors on the spacecraft. Longevity is key, because the spacecraft will journey more than five years to arrive at the Jupiter system in 2030. As it orbits the gas giant, the probe will fly by Europa multiple times, using a suite of science instruments to find out whether the ocean underneath its ice shell has conditions that could support life.

Powering those flybys in a region of the solar system that receives only 3% to 4% of the sunlight Earth gets, each solar array is composed of five panels. Designed and built at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and Airbus in Leiden, Netherlands, they are much more sensitive than the type of solar arrays used on homes, and the highly efficient spacecraft will make the most of the power they generate.

At Jupiter, Europa Clipper’s arrays will together provide roughly 700 watts of electricity, about what a small microwave oven or a coffee maker needs to operate. On the spacecraft, batteries will store the power to run all of the electronics, a full payload of science instruments, communications equipment, the computer, and an entire propulsion system that includes 24 engines.

While doing all of that, the arrays must operate in extreme cold. The hardware’s temperature will plunge to minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 240 degrees Celsius) when in Jupiter’s shadow. To ensure that the panels can operate in those extremes, engineers tested them in a specialized cryogenic chamber at Liège Space Center in Belgium.

“The spacecraft is cozy. It has heaters and an active thermal loop, which keep it in a much more normal temperature range,” said APL’s Taejoo Lee, the solar array product delivery manager. “But the solar arrays are exposed to the vacuum of space without any heaters. They’re completely passive, so whatever the environment is, those are the temperatures they get.”

About 90 minutes after launch, the arrays will unfurl from their folded position over the course of about 40 minutes. About two weeks later, six antennas affixed to the arrays will also deploy to their full size. The antennas belong to the radar instrument, which will search for water within and beneath the moon’s thick ice shell, and they are enormous, unfolding to a length of 57.7 feet (17.6 meters), perpendicular to the arrays.

“At the beginning of the project, we really thought it would be nearly impossible to develop a solar array strong enough to hold these gigantic antennas,” Lee said. “It was difficult, but the team brought a lot of creativity to the challenge, and we figured it out.”

More About the Mission

Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its 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, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with 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, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.

TOP IMAGE: NASA’s Europa Clipper is seen here on Aug. 21 at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers and technicians deployed and tested the giant solar arrays to be sure they will operate in flight. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

CENTRE IMAGE: NASA’s Europa Clipper is seen here on Aug. 21 in a clean room at Kennedy Space Center after engineers and technicians tested and stowed the spacecraft’s giant solar arrays. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

LOWER IMAGE: This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter. The mission’s launch period opens Oct. 10. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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SwRI-led instrument aboard Jupiter-bound spacecraft nails in-flight test

As European Space Agency (ESA)’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft hurtled past the Moon and Earth in mid-August to provide its first gravity assist maneuver to the Jovian system, the Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instrument imaged the UV emissions radiating from the Earth and Moon.

It was a successful test of one of three science instrument projects comprising NASA’s contribution to ESA’s Juice mission. The UVS data collected were then analyzed and found to be consistent with expectations for the Moon and the Earth. This confirmation that the instrument works within specifications was not able to be fully achieved during pre-launch testing in a laboratory setting.

“This high-fidelity test confirmed what the instrument is supposed to do. We can now be confident that the data we will get from Jupiter’s moons will be just as accurate,” said SwRI’s Steven Persyn, Juice-UVS project manager (PM).

Weighing just over 40 pounds and drawing only 7.5 watts of power, UVS is smaller than a microwave oven, yet this powerful instrument will determine the relative concentrations of various elements and molecules in the atmospheres of Jupiter’s moons once in the Jovian system.

Aboard Juice, UVS will get close-up views of the Galilean moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, all thought to host liquid water beneath their icy surfaces. UVS will record ultraviolet light emitted, transmitted and reflected by these bodies, revealing the composition of their surfaces and tenuous atmospheres and how they interact with Jupiter and its giant magnetosphere. Additional scientific goals include observations of Jupiter itself as well as the gases from its volcanic moon Io that spread throughout the Jovian magnetosphere.

The Juice spacecraft is now on its way to Venus, where it will complete a gravity assist maneuver before heading back to Earth for another gravity assist to attain the momentum needed for its journey to the Jovian system.

The mission’s science goals focus on Jupiter and its system, making multiple flybys of the planet’s large, ocean-bearing satellites with a particular emphasis on investigating Ganymede as a potentially habitable planetary body. Being the only moon in the solar system known to have an internal magnetic field, Ganymede has auroral ovals like the northern and southern lights on Earth. The UV emissions from Earth’s atmosphere observed during the recent gravity assists provide an especially good test of the plans for Juice-UVS to observe Ganymede’s UV aurora and other atmospheric features. It will also study the system as an archetype for gas giants in our solar system and beyond.

UVS is one of 10 science instruments and 11 investigations on the Juice spacecraft. As it begins an approximately 4.1-billion-mile (6.6-billion-kilometer), eight-year journey to the Jupiter system, the spacecraft has been busy deploying and activating its antennas, booms, sensors and instruments to check out and commission all its important subsystems. SwRI’s UVS instrument is the latest to succeed in this task.

A similar instrument, Europa-UVS, will travel aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper, which will take a more direct route to arrive at the Jupiter system 15 months before Juice and focus on studying the potential habitability of Europa.

“Our UVS instrument will complement the work that will be done by Europa-UVS allowing us to learn even more at the same time,” said SwRI’s Dr. Kurt Retherford, principal investigator (PI) of Europa-UVS and deputy PI for Juice-UVS. “Having both teams working with the UVS instruments based here at SwRI will make that coordination all the more efficient.”

The Juice spacecraft and science instruments were built by teams from 15 European countries, Japan and the United States. SwRI’s UVS instrument team includes additional scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder, the SETI institute, the University of Leicester (U.K.), Imperial College London (U.K.), the University of Liège (Belgium), the Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) and the Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (France). The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center oversees the UVS contribution to ESA through the agency’s Solar System Exploration Program. The Juice spacecraft was developed by Airbus Defence and Space.

IMAGE: The UVS instrument recorded spatial information produced by hydrogen atoms radiating from the Earth. In the background a number of individual stars are identified along with the Pleiades star cluster. Juice-UVS plans to similarly observe hydrogen atoms radiating from Ganymede and Jupiter’s other icy moons. Credit Southwest Research Institute

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究極の宇宙冒険：木星の隠された海への2030年代のミッション全容を完全ノーカット

A two-rover mission to Jupiter's icy satellites Europa Ganymede and Calisto to the hidden oceans of Jupiter's icy satellites to unfold in the 2030s. The JUICE spacecraft, led by the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Europa Clipper spacecraft, launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will arrive in the Jupiter system in the 2030s to explore three satellites whose surfaces are covered with ice and are believed to have liquid oceans beneath. The era of exploration will begin in the 2030s.

In this video, we show the uncensored orbital movements of the two spacecrafts, JUICE and Europa Clipper, from their launch to their arrival in Jupiter's orbit.

▼Missed Streaming▼. 🎦Double Flyby by the Moon and Earth - The Epic Mission of JUICE, Jupiter's Ice Satellite Explorer https://youtu.be/EeYWtCHjyt4

🎦Jupiter's largest satellite in the solar system, Ganymede - 10 times the ocean content of Earth! https://youtu.be/lxmucG9k2eY

📝More information📝. 0:00 Launch of JUICE spacecraft 1:57 Europa Clipper launch 4:04 Europa Clipper arrives at Jupiter system 5:07 Spacecraft JUICE arrives at Ganymede 7:12 Coupled play by two spacecraft 9:30 Callisto probe count 10:26 Europa over 30 times 10:56 Europa over 40 11:15 Europa Clipper operation ends 11:42 Spacecraft JUICE enters Ganymede orbit 12:18 Announcement of results for both spacecraft

Please enjoy the show to the end.

The largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for planetary exploration just got its ‘wings’ — massive solar arrays to power it on the journey to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-europa-clipper-gets-set-of-super-size-solar-arrays

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, the largest ever built for exploring planets, just got its massive "wings"—huge solar panels designed to power it on its journey to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Recently installed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, these solar arrays are the biggest NASA has ever created for a planetary mission. Each one is about 46½ feet long and 13½ feet high, designed to capture plenty of sunlight since Europa is much farther from the Sun than Earth.