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<\/p>\nLater this year, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center with one of the most highly-anticipated and monumental planetary science missions of the decade \u2014 Europa Clipper. The mission will see the spacecraft travel to the smallest of Jupiter\u2019s four Galilean moons, Europa, to investigate the characteristics of the moon, including proving the existence of a subsurface ocean and the possibility of habitable conditions being contained within that ocean.<\/p>\n
Europa Clipper is currently undergoing final construction and testing at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. Later this spring, testing will finish, and the spacecraft will be packaged up and shipped to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where final launch preparations will begin \u2014 ultimately culminating in the launch of the spacecraft in October. NSF recently had the opportunity to visit Europa Clipper in its clean room at JPL\u2019s Spacecraft Assembly Facility and ask Cynthia Phillips, project staff scientist at JPL, about the mission and the current state of progress toward launch.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
While construction of Europa Clipper may have started just a few years ago, planning for the mission and the design of the spacecraft started over a decade ago, in 2013, when the National Research Council recommended a mission to Europa, and funds were authorized for the formulation of mission plans and design. In 2017, the mission moved into the preliminary design phase, which continued into 2019. The spacecraft then moved into final design and fabrication, and in March 2022, the mission moved into the assembly, testing, and launch phase, and spacecraft construction officially began.<\/p>\n
Since then, the spacecraft\u2019s main body and instruments have been constructed and mated together at JPL, with the construction of the main body of the spacecraft being completed in June 2022. By Jan. 30, 2024, all nine of Europa Clipper\u2019s instruments had been mated to the main body of the spacecraft.<\/p>\n
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Up-close image of Europa Clipper in its clean room at JPL. Note the instruments located around the body of the spacecraft. (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)<\/p>\n
The cameras of Europa Clipper are the Europa Imaging System (EIS) and Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS). For spectroscopy, the spacecraft will use its Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS) and Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE) instruments. For measuring the plasma and magnetic field around Europa, the Europa Clipper Magnetometer (ECM) Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS) instruments will be used. To analyze the moon\u2019s gravity, the Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON) instrument will be used. Lastly, for chemical analysis, Europa Clipper will use the Mass Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration\/Europa (MASPEX) and Surface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) instruments.<\/p>\n
Following the completion of construction, the spacecraft underwent several rounds of testing. In March, it was confirmed that all testing had been successful and that the spacecraft was on track for an on-time delivery to the Kennedy Space Center and, ultimately, launch. The mission\u2019s launch window opens on Oct. 10.<\/p>\n
Assuming a successful delivery to Florida and an on-time launch, Europa Clipper is set to arrive at Jupiter in 2030, with the spacecraft performing its orbital insertion burn on April 11, 2030. During the time between launch and its arrival at Jupiter, the spacecraft will perform flybys of Earth and Mars \u2014 maneuvers called \u201cgravity assists\u201d that help alter the spacecraft\u2019s speed and trajectory to Jupiter in an effort to preserve spacecraft fuel. While in orbit around Jupiter, the spacecraft will perform as many as 45 to 50 flybys of Europa, even flying as close as 25 kilometers from the moon\u2019s smooth, icy surface.<\/p>\n
Aerospace industry analysis (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n Following these first 45-50 flybys, and assuming the mission has progressed without a hitch, would a mission extension be possible? If so, what new imagery of the surface could be gathered?<\/p>\n \u201cAs of right now, we have about 50 flybys planned and mapped out. We\u2019ll first have multiple flybys of the anti-Jupiter hemisphere (the side of Europa that faces away from Jupiter), and then we\u2019ll have multiple flybys of the sub-Jupiter hemisphere. After that, if we\u2019re so lucky as to have a spacecraft that\u2019s still operating and be granted an extended mission, then yeah, I imagine that as we\u2019re going through the images that we take of both the sub-Jupiter and the anti-Jupiter hemisphere during the prime mission, I imagine we\u2019re going to find all sorts of just intriguing features that, you know, we have no idea even exist now, just because we haven\u2019t seen the surface at this resolution. So, I hope we will be able to get more and more coverage of these features (with an extended mission),\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n Europa Clipper\u2019s MISE spectrometer attached to the body of the spacecraft. (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)<\/p>\n With this imagery and the several camera instruments onboard Europa Clipper, teams are hoping to confirm the existence of a potential subsurface ocean on Europa and, furthermore, the potential existence of life within this ocean. Life has long been theorized to exist on Europa if the moon indeed harbors a subsurface ocean, but observations from previous spacecraft like Juno and Galileo have only been able to provide evidence for its existence \u2014 not prove it. In fact, the possibility of this subsurface ocean and life is one of the main driving factors behind the creation of the mission and why it continues to receive support and funding from NASA and other agencies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole reason why we\u2019re going to Jupiter, the reason why we\u2019re building Europa Clipper, is that we know that Europa\u2019s surface is covered with ice, but below that ice is this layer of liquid water. And we think, from observations taken by the Galileo spacecraft, that there\u2019s actually more water there than all of Earth\u2019s oceans combined. So we\u2019re talking about a vast ocean of liquid water. It\u2019s probably a little bit less salty than Earth\u2019s oceans and we think that it\u2019s been there over the age of the solar system \u2014 we\u2019re talking four billion years. It\u2019s because of this liquid water and the fact that it\u2019s so stable and it\u2019s been there for so long that Europa, in my opinion, is one of the best places for life to exist in our solar system beyond the Earth. And so that\u2019s really the impetus of the whole Europa Clipper mission is to study the habitability of Europa,\u201d Phillips explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mission is not a life detection mission per se. If we find giant whale breaching zones, okay, we found one. But more likely, the mission\u2019s actual goals are to study the habitability of Europa. So that means, are there places below the surface of Europa that could support life, that could be habitable? And then it\u2019ll take a future mission to go back and maybe actually land on the surface or maybe even drill down and get into that ocean to actually say, \u2018Okay, is Europa actually inhabited?’\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Screenshot-2024-04-16-153813.png\")
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