The Latest Update on America's Newest Jupiter-bound Orbiter...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s Europa Clipper Radar Instrument Proves Itself at Mars (News Release)

The agency’s largest interplanetary probe tested its radar during a Mars flyby. The results include a detailed image and bode well for the mission at Jupiter’s moon Europa.

As it soared past Mars in March, NASA’s Europa Clipper conducted a critical radar test that had been impossible to accomplish on Earth. Now that mission scientists have studied the full stream of data, they can declare success: The radar performed just as expected, bouncing and receiving signals off the region around Mars’ equator without a hitch.

Called REASON (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface), the radar instrument will “see” into Europa’s icy shell, which may have pockets of water inside. The radar may even be able to detect the ocean beneath the shell of Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon.

“We got everything out of the flyby that we dreamed,” said Don Blankenship, principal investigator of the radar instrument, of the University of Texas at Austin. “The goal was to determine the radar’s readiness for the Europa mission, and it worked. Every part of the instrument proved itself to do exactly what we intended.”

The radar will help scientists understand how the ice may capture materials from the ocean and transfer them to the surface of the moon. Above ground, the instrument will help to study elements of Europa’s topography, such as ridges, so scientists can examine how they relate to features that REASON images beneath the surface.

Limits of Earth

Europa Clipper has an unusual radar setup for an interplanetary spacecraft: REASON uses two pairs of slender antennas that jut out from the solar arrays, spanning a distance of about 58 feet (17.6 meters). Those arrays themselves are huge — from tip to tip, the size of a basketball court — so that they can catch as much light as possible at Europa, which gets about 1/25th the sunlight as Earth.

The instrument team conducted all of the testing that was possible prior to the spacecraft’s launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 14, 2024. During development, engineers at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California even took the work outdoors, using open-air towers on a plateau above JPL to stretch out and test engineering models of the instrument’s spindly high-frequency and more compact very-high-frequency antennas.

But once the actual flight hardware was built, it needed to be kept sterile and could only be tested in an enclosed area. Engineers used the giant High Bay 1 clean room at JPL, where the spacecraft was assembled, to test the instrument piece by piece. To test the “echo,” or the bounceback of REASON’s signals, however, they would have needed a chamber about 250 feet (76 meters) long — nearly three-quarters the length of a football field.

Enter Mars

The mission’s primary goal in flying by Mars on March 1, less than five months after launch, was to use the planet’s gravitational pull to reshape the spacecraft’s trajectory. But it also presented opportunities to calibrate the spacecraft’s infrared camera and perform a dry run of the radar instrument over terrain that NASA scientists have been studying for decades.

As Europa Clipper zipped by the volcanic plains of the Red Planet — starting at 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) down to 550 miles (884 kilometers) above the surface — REASON sent and received radio waves for about 40 minutes. In comparison, at Europa the instrument will operate as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the moon’s surface.

All told, engineers were able to collect 60 gigabytes of rich data from the instrument. Almost immediately, they could tell that REASON was working well. The flight team scheduled the full dataset to download, starting in mid-May.

Scientists relished the opportunity over the next couple of months to examine the information in detail and compare notes.

“The engineers were excited that their test worked so perfectly,” said JPL’s Trina Ray, Europa Clipper deputy science manager. “All of us who had worked so hard to make this test happen — and the scientists seeing the data for the first time — were ecstatic, saying, ‘Oh, look at this! Oh, look at that!’ Now, the science team is getting a head start on learning how to process the data and understand the instrument’s behavior compared to models. They are exercising those muscles just like they will out at Europa.”

Europa Clipper’s total journey to reach the icy moon will be about 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) and includes one more gravity assist — using Earth — in 2026. The spacecraft is currently about 280 million miles (450 million kilometers) from Earth.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / JPL - Caltech


NASA / JPL - Caltech / UT - Austin

Photos of the Day: A Summer Tour at NASA JPL...

Richard T. Par

Just thought I'd end this month by sharing pictures I took during a public tour, held on July 17, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in La Cañada Flintridge, California.

Unlike previous tours that I attended over the past couple of years, there was no spacecraft like Europa Clipper or the Perseverance Mars rover currently being built inside JPL's historic Spacecraft Assembly Facility. Instead, a science instrument known as ASTHROS (Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths) was being prepped for an upcoming high-altitude balloon mission that will deploy above Antarctica. The balloon that will send ASTHROS 130,000 feet (25 miles) into the stratosphere itself is pretty impressive; when fully-inflated, the helium-filled sphere will reach a diameter of 460 feet, which is about the size of Dodger Stadium here in Los Angeles!

While it's cool to see an airborne science instrument being constructed at JPL, it remains to be seen when the venerable laboratory will get to assemble a spaceborne payload (for a mission like Mars Sample Return) once again. Thanks to the loss of hundreds of laid-off employees and an uncertain NASA budget for next year thanks to Donald Trump, it may be quite a while till JPL gets to construct another robotic explorer that will venture somewhere in our Solar System.

In the meantime, JPL will just have to remain the "Center of the Universe" for current deep space missions that won't be affected by the lousy policies of a convicted felon in the White House. Carry on.


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par


Richard T. Par

The Latest Update on America's Newest Jupiter-bound Orbiter...

NASA / JPL - Caltech / ASU / SwRI

Europa Clipper Captures Mars, Phobos and Deimos (Photo Release)

NASA's Europa Clipper captured this infrared image of the heat radiation from Mars and its moons Phobos (closest to Mars) and Deimos (seen in upper left corner) on February 28, 2025, as the spacecraft approached the Red Planet while en route to the Jupiter system to investigate the icy moon Europa. The mission flew by Mars the next day, using the planet's gravity to help shape the spacecraft's trajectory.

When the image was taken by the mission's Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS), the spacecraft was about 560,000 miles (900,000 kilometers) from the Red Planet. The image is composed of 200 individual frames, part of a continuous scan of 1,100 frames taken roughly a second apart over a period of 20 minutes. Scientists are using the tiny, point-like images of the moons to check the camera's focus.

The image was captured using the middle of E-THEMIS's three long-wave infrared wavelength bands, which extend from about 14 to 28 micrometers. (A previously released E-THEMIS image of Mars used the shortest of the instrument's wavelength bands, extending from 7 to 14 micrometers and showing Mars in higher contrast.)

The dark oval near the top of Mars is the planet's cold northern polar cap and is about -190° Fahrenheit (-125° Celsius). The circular feature seen on Mars is the region around Elysium Mons.

The faint halo seen around the planet is due to the processing of the image. The two moons are about 250 times fainter than Mars, so scientists brightened the image (except for a region circling the planet) to make the moons more visible. The brightening also makes image noise more visible; the area surrounding Mars within the halo appears comparatively dark because it wasn't brightened.

Figure A (below) is an annotated version of the image with the moons labeled.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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FIGURE A: NASA / JPL - Caltech / ASU / SwRI


NASA / JPL - Caltech

America's Newest Jupiter-bound Orbiter Took a Thermal Glimpse of the Red Planet Two Months Ago...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s Europa Clipper Captures Mars in Infrared (News Release)

Headed for Jupiter’s moon Europa, the spacecraft did some sightseeing, using a flyby of Mars to calibrate its infrared imaging instrument.

On its recent swing by Mars, NASA’s Europa Clipper took the opportunity to capture infrared images of the Red Planet. The data will help mission scientists calibrate the spacecraft’s thermal imaging instrument so they can be sure that it’s operating correctly when Europa Clipper arrives at the Jupiter system in 2030.

The mission’s sights are set on Jupiter’s moon Europa and the global ocean hidden beneath its icy surface. A year after slipping into orbit around Jupiter, Europa Clipper will begin a series of 49 close flybys of the moon to investigate whether it holds conditions suitable for life.

A key element of that investigation will be thermal imaging — global scans of Europa that map temperatures to shed light on how active the surface is. Infrared imaging will reveal how much heat is being emitted from the moon; warmer areas of the ice give off more energy and indicate recent activity.

The imaging will also tell scientists where the ocean is closest to the surface. Europa is crisscrossed by dramatic ridges and fractures, which scientists believe are caused by ocean convection pulling apart the icy crust and water rising up to fill the gaps.

“We want to measure the temperature of those features,” said Arizona State University’s Phil Christensen, principal investigator of Europa Clipper’s infrared camera, called the Europa Thermal Imaging System (E-THEMIS). “If Europa is a really active place, those fractures will be warmer than the surrounding ice where the ocean comes close to the surface. Or if water erupted onto the surface hundreds to thousands of years ago, then those surfaces could still be relatively warm.”

Why Mars

On March 1, Europa Clipper flew just 550 miles (884 kilometers) above the surface of Mars in order to use the planet’s gravitational pull to reshape the spacecraft’s trajectory. Ultimately, the assist will get the mission to Jupiter faster than if it made a beeline for the gas giant, but the flyby also offered a critical opportunity for Europa Clipper to test E-THEMIS.

For about 18 minutes on March 1, the instrument captured one image per second, yielding more than a thousand grayscale pictures that were transmitted to Earth starting on May 5. After compiling these images into a global snapshot of Mars, scientists applied color, using hues with familiar associations: Warm areas are depicted in red, while colder areas are shown as blue.

By comparing E-THEMIS images with those made from established Mars data, scientists can judge how well the instrument is working.

“We wanted no surprises in these new images,” Christensen said. “The goal was to capture imagery of a planetary body we know extraordinarily well and make sure the dataset looks exactly the way it should, based on 20 years of instruments documenting Mars.”

NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, launched in 2001, carries a sister instrument named THEMIS that has been capturing its own thermal images of the Red Planet for decades. To be extra thorough, the Odyssey team collected thermal images of Mars before, during, and after Europa Clipper’s flyby so that Europa scientists can compare the visuals as an additional gauge of how well E-THEMIS is calibrated.

Europa Clipper also took advantage of the close proximity to Mars to test all the components of its radar instrument in unison for the first time. The radar antennas and the wavelengths they produce are so long that it wasn’t possible for engineers to do that in a clean room before launch. The radar data will be returned and analyzed in the coming weeks and months, but preliminary assessments of the real-time telemetry indicate that the test went well.

To leverage the flyby even further, the science team took the opportunity to ensure that the spacecraft’s telecommunication equipment will be able to conduct gravity experiments at Europa. By transmitting signals to Earth while passing through Mars’ gravity field, they were able to confirm that a similar operation is expected to work at Europa.

Europa Clipper launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 14, 2024, via a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, embarking on a 1.8 billion-mile (2.9 billion-kilometer) journey to Jupiter, which is five times farther from the Sun than Earth is. Now that the probe has harnessed the gravity of Mars, its next gravity assist will be from Earth in 2026.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / JPL - Caltech / ASU


NASA / JPL - Caltech / ASU

America's Newest Jupiter-bound Orbiter Will Soon Fly Past the Red Planet for a Gravity Assist...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s Europa Clipper Uses Mars to Go the Distance (News Release)

The orbiter bound for Jupiter’s moon Europa will investigate whether the moon is habitable, but it first will get the help of Mars’ gravitational force to get to deep space.

On March 1, NASA’s Europa Clipper will streak just 550 miles (884 kilometers) above the surface of Mars for what’s known as a gravity assist — a maneuver to bend the spacecraft’s trajectory and position it for a critical leg of its long voyage to the Jupiter system. The close flyby offers a bonus opportunity for mission scientists, who will test their radar instrument and thermal imager.

Europa Clipper will be closest to the Red Planet at 12:57 p.m. EST, approaching it at about 15.2 miles per second (24.5 kilometers per second) relative to the Sun. For about 12 hours prior and 12 hours after that time, the spacecraft will use the gravitational pull of Mars to pump the brakes and reshape its orbit around the Sun. As the orbiter leaves Mars behind, it will be traveling at a speed of about 14 miles per second (22.5 kilometers per second).

The flyby sets up Europa Clipper for its second gravity assist — a close encounter with Earth in December 2026 that will act as a slingshot and give the spacecraft a velocity boost. After that, it’s a straightforward trek to the outer Solar System; the probe is set to arrive at Jupiter’s orbit in April 2030.

“We come in very fast, and the gravity from Mars acts on the spacecraft to bend its path,” said Brett Smith, a mission systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Meanwhile, we’re exchanging a small amount of energy with the planet, so we leave on a path that will bring us back past Earth.”

Harnessing Gravity

Europa Clipper launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 14, 2024, via a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, embarking on a 1.8-billion-mile (2.9-billion-kilometer) trip to Jupiter, which is five times farther from the Sun than Earth is. Without the assists from Mars in 2025 and from Earth in 2026, the 12,750-pound (6,000-kilogram) spacecraft would require additional propellant, which adds weight and cost, or it would take much longer to get to Jupiter.

Gravity assists are baked into NASA’s mission planning, as engineers figure out early on how to make the most of the momentum in our Solar System. Famously, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, which launched in 1977, took advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime planetary lineup to fly by the gas giants, harnessing their gravity and capturing data about them.

While navigators at JPL, which manages Europa Clipper and Voyager, have been designing flight paths and using gravity assists for decades, the process of calculating a spacecraft’s trajectory in relation to planets that are constantly on the move is never simple.

“It’s like a game of billiards around the Solar System, flying by a couple of planets at just the right angle and timing to build up the energy we need to get to Jupiter and Europa,” said JPL’s Ben Bradley, Europa Clipper mission planner. “Everything has to line up — the geometry of the Solar System has to be just right to pull it off.”

Refining the Path

Navigators sent the spacecraft on an initial trajectory that left some buffer around Mars so that if anything were to go wrong in the weeks after launch, Europa Clipper wouldn’t risk impacting the planet. Then the team used the spacecraft’s engines to veer closer to Mars’ orbit in what are called trajectory correction maneuvers, or TCMs.

Mission controllers have performed three TCMs to set the stage for the Mars gravity assist — in early November, late January and on February 14. They will conduct another TCM about 15 days after the Mars flyby to ensure that the spacecraft is on track and are likely to conduct additional ones — upwards of 200 — throughout the mission, which is set to last until 2034.

Opportunity for Science

While navigators are relying on the gravity assist for fuel efficiency and to keep the spacecraft on their planned path, scientists are looking forward to the event to take advantage of the close proximity to the Red Planet and test two of the mission’s science instruments.

About a day prior to the closest approach, the mission will calibrate the thermal imager, resulting in a multicolored image of Mars in the months following as the data is returned and scientists process the data. And near closest approach, they’ll have the radar instrument perform a test of its operations — the first time that all of its components will be tested together. The radar antennas are so massive, and the wavelengths they produce so long that it wasn’t possible for engineers to test them on Earth before launch.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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America's Newest Jupiter-bound Orbiter Has Taken Its First Glimpse of Space...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

En Route to Jupiter, NASA’s Europa Clipper Captures Images of Stars (News Release)

The spacecraft’s star trackers help engineers orient the orbiter throughout its long journey to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

Three months after its launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the agency’s Europa Clipper has another 1.6 billion miles (2.6 billion kilometers) to go before it reaches Jupiter’s orbit in 2030 to take close-up images of the icy moon Europa with science cameras.

Meanwhile, a set of cameras serving a different purpose is snapping photos in the space between Earth and Jupiter. Called star trackers, the two imagers look for stars and use them like a compass to help mission controllers know the exact orientation of the spacecraft — information critical for pointing telecommunications antennas toward Earth and sending data back and forth smoothly.

In early December, the pair of star trackers (formally known as the stellar reference units) captured and transmitted Europa Clipper’s first imagery of space. The picture, composed of three shots, shows tiny pinpricks of light from stars 150 to 300 light-years away. The starfield represents only about 0.1% of the full sky around the spacecraft, but by mapping the stars in just that small slice of sky, the orbiter is able to determine where it is pointed and orient itself correctly.

The starfield includes the four brightest stars — Gienah, Algorab, Kraz and Alchiba — of the constellation Corvus, which is Latin for “crow,” a bird in Greek mythology that was associated with Apollo.

Hardware Checkout

Besides being interesting to stargazers, the photos signal the successful checkout of the star trackers. The spacecraft checkout phase has been going on since Europa Clipper launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on October 14, 2024.

“The star trackers are engineering hardware and are always taking images, which are processed on board,” said Joanie Noonan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who leads the mission’s guidance, navigation and control operations. “We usually don’t downlink photos from the trackers, but we did in this case because it’s a really good way to make sure the hardware — including the cameras and their lenses — made it safely through launch.”

Pointing the spacecraft correctly is not about navigation, which is a separate operation. But orientation using the star trackers is critical for telecommunications as well as for the science operations of the mission. Engineers need to know where the science instruments are pointed.

These science instruments include the sophisticated Europa Imaging System (EIS), which will collect images that will help scientists map and examine the moon’s mysterious fractures, ridges and valleys. For at least the next three years, EIS has its protective covers closed.

Europa Clipper carries nine science instruments, plus the telecommunications equipment that will be used for a gravity science investigation. During the mission’s 49 flybys of Europa, the suite will gather data that will tell scientists if the icy moon and its internal ocean have the conditions to harbor life.

The spacecraft is already 53 million miles (85 million kilometers) from Earth, zipping along at 17 miles per second (27 kilometers per second) relative to the Sun, and will soon fly by Mars. On March 1, engineers will steer the craft in a loop around the Red Planet, using its gravity to gain speed.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / JPL - Caltech

A New Radio Dish for Space Exploration Is Emerging in the California Desert...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s New Deep Space Network Antenna Has Its Crowning Moment (News Release - December 20)

Deep Space Station 23’s 133-ton reflector dish was recently installed, marking a key step in strengthening NASA’s Deep Space Network.

NASA’s Deep Space Network, an array of giant radio antennas, allows agency missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from spacecraft venturing to the Moon and beyond. NASA is adding a new antenna, bringing the total to 15, to support increased demand for the world’s largest and most sensitive radio frequency telecommunication system.

Installation of the latest antenna took place on December 18, when teams at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, installed the metal reflector framework for Deep Space Station 23, a multifrequency beam-waveguide antenna. When operational in 2026, Deep Space Station 23 will receive transmissions from missions such as Perseverance, Psyche, Europa Clipper, Voyager 1 and a growing fleet of future human and robotic spacecraft in deep space.

“This addition to the Deep Space Network represents a crucial communication upgrade for the agency,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program. “The communications infrastructure has been in continuous operation since its creation in 1963, and with this upgrade we are ensuring NASA is ready to support the growing number of missions exploring the Moon, Mars and beyond.”

Construction of the new antenna has been under way for more than four years, and during the installation, teams used a crawler crane to lower the 133-ton metal skeleton of the 112-foot-wide (34-meter-wide) parabolic reflector before it was bolted to a 65-foot-high (20-meter-high) alidade, a platform above the antenna’s pedestal that will steer the reflector during operations.

“One of the biggest challenges facing us during the lift was to ensure that 40 bolt-holes were perfectly aligned between the structure and alidade,” said Germaine Aziz, systems engineer, Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Program of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This required a meticulous emphasis on alignment prior to the lift to guarantee everything went smoothly on the day.”

Following the main lift, engineers carried out a lighter lift to place a quadripod, a four-legged support structure weighing 16 1/2 tons, onto the center of the upward-facing reflector. The quadripod features a curved subreflector that will direct radio frequency signals from deep space that bounce off the main reflector into the antenna’s pedestal, where the antenna’s receivers are housed.

Engineers will now work to fit panels onto the steel skeleton to create a curved surface to reflect radio frequency signals. Once complete, Deep Space Station 23 will be the fifth of six new beam-waveguide antennas to join the network, following Deep Space Station 53, which was added at the Deep Space Network’s Madrid complex in 2022.

“With the Deep Space Network, we are able to explore the Martian landscape with our rovers, see the James Webb Space Telescope’s stunning cosmic observations, and so much more,” said Laurie Leshin, director of JPL. “The network enables over 40 deep space missions, including the farthest human-made objects in the Universe, Voyager 1 and 2. With upgrades like these, the network will continue to support humanity’s exploration of our Solar System and beyond, enabling groundbreaking science and discovery far into the future.”

NASA’s Deep Space Network is managed by JPL, with the oversight of NASA’s SCaN Program. More than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions rely on the Deep Space Network and Near Space Network, including supporting astronauts aboard the International Space Station and future Artemis missions, monitoring Earth’s weather and the effects of climate change, supporting lunar exploration, and uncovering the Solar System and beyond.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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The Latest Update on America's Newest Jupiter-bound Orbiter...

NASA

NASA’s Europa Clipper: Millions of Miles Down, Instruments Deploying (News Release)

Headed to Jupiter’s moon Europa, the spacecraft is operating without a hitch and will reach Mars in just three months for a gravity assist.

NASA’s Europa Clipper, which launched October 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 that 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 that 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 that the spacecraft needs to take as it travels deeper into space. Here’s a peek:

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’ 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 that 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.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Our mission will get even closer - with closest-approach altitudes as low as 16 miles (25 kilometers) above the surface! https://t.co/W1qt9CeEbF https://t.co/LDUk8bjqEY

— NASA Europa Clipper (@EuropaClipper) November 25, 2024

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Has Finally Departed from Earth!

SpaceX

Liftoff! NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter (Press Release)

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 on Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The largest spacecraft that NASA has ever built for a mission headed to another planet, Europa Clipper is also 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 that 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 have also found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface. If the mission determines that 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 that 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 the 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 at 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?’”

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / JPL - Caltech


NASA / JPL - Caltech


SpaceX

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Will Get a New Launch Date After Florida Weathers the Latest Tropical Cyclone...

NASA / Ben Smegelsky

NASA Begins Post-Hurricane Milton Assessments at Kennedy (News Release)

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida remains closed as Hurricane Milton moves off the coast.

The safety of everyone impacted by the storm remains our top priority as the agency begins the assessment and recovery process from the hurricane.

Once the winds subsided to a safe level, the center’s Ride Out Team and engineering teams began initial checkouts to ensure that bridges are safe and useable. Later, a larger assessment team will thoroughly check the entire center.

The agency’s Europa Clipper launch team will schedule an official launch date when teams from NASA and SpaceX are able to perform their assessments, and confirm that it’s safe to launch. Teams are working to protect launch opportunities no earlier than Sunday, October 13. Clipper has launch opportunities through Wednesday, November 6.

NASA will provide more information on Clipper launch opportunities as it becomes available.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Kennedy's Ride Out Team is conducting an initial assessment of the center. The majority of the impacts observed at this time are minor damage to doors, traffic lights, awnings, and small trailers.

The Damage Assessment and Recovery Team, or DART, will conduct a comprehensive… pic.twitter.com/jazgk1JbdH

— NASA's Kennedy Space Center (@NASAKennedy) October 10, 2024

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Will Not Launch Next Thursday, October 10, As Planned...

NASA

NASA, SpaceX Secure Europa Clipper Ahead of Hurricane (News Release)

NASA and SpaceX are standing down from the Thursday, October 10, launch attempt of the agency’s Europa Clipper mission due to anticipated hurricane conditions in the area. Hurricane Milton is expected to move from the Gulf of Mexico this week, heading east to the Space Coast. High winds and heavy rain are expected in the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions on Florida’s east coast.

Launch teams have secured NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in SpaceX’s hangar at Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of the severe weather, and the center began hurricane preparations on Sunday.

“The safety of launch team personnel is our highest priority, and all precautions will be taken to protect the Europa Clipper spacecraft,” said Tim Dunn, senior launch director at NASA’s Launch Services Program.

On October 4, workers transported NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in the hangar as part of final launch preparations ahead of its journey to Jupiter’s icy moon. While Europa Clipper’s launch period opens on October 10, the window provides launch opportunities until Wednesday, November 6.

Once the storm passes, recovery teams will assess the safety of the spaceport before personnel return to work. Then launch teams will assess the launch processing facilities for damage from the storm.

“Once we have the ‘all-clear’ followed by facility assessment and any recovery actions, we will determine the next launch opportunity for this NASA flagship mission,” said Dunn.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Ben Smegelsky

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Meets Its SpaceX Rocket Fairings...

NASA / Ben Smegelsky

NASA’s Europa Clipper Mated to Payload Adapter, Encapsulated (News Release - October 4)

NASA and SpaceX technicians recently completed several important milestones as they prepare for the upcoming launch of the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

First, teams connected the Europa Clipper spacecraft to the payload adapter on Thursday, September 26, inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With Europa Clipper securely attached to the payload adapter, the team then connected the combined assembly to the payload attach fitting on Monday, September 30. These operations will enable the spacecraft to join with the rocket in the coming days.

Next, teams detached various coverings that shielded sensitive parts of the spacecraft during processing. Finally, on Wednesday, October 2, teams encapsulated the spacecraft inside payload fairings, which will protect the spacecraft from aerodynamic pressure and heat during launch. After liftoff, the fairings will separate once the rocket’s second stage climbs high enough, approximately 5 minutes into the flight, and the fairings will return to Earth where SpaceX plans to recover them.

NASA is targeting Thursday, October 10, for launching Europa Clipper on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy. This will start a years-long journey to Jupiter, where it will help scientists determine if the enigmatic moon has conditions suitable to support life.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Ben Smegelsky


NASA / Ben Smegelsky


NASA / Ben Smegelsky


NASA / Ben Smegelsky


NASA / Ben Smegelsky

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Is Now Gassed Up for Its October Launch...

NASA / Kim Shiflett

Fueling Complete on NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft (News Release)

Technicians completed loading propellants in the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft on Sunday, September 22, inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Housed in the largest spacecraft that NASA has ever built for a planetary mission, Europa Clipper’s propulsion module is an aluminum cylinder 10 feet (3 meters) long and 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide, and it holds the spacecraft’s array of 24 engines and 6,067.6 pounds (2,752.2 kilograms) of propellant in two propulsion tanks, as well as the spacecraft’s helium pressurant tanks. The fuel and oxidizer held by the tanks will flow to the 24 engines, creating a controlled chemical reaction to produce thrust in space during its journey to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life.

After launch, the spacecraft plans to fly by Mars in February 2025, then back by Earth in December 2026, using the gravity of each planet to increase its momentum. With help of these “gravity assists,” Europa Clipper will achieve the velocity needed to reach Jupiter in April 2030.

NASA is targeting launch on Thursday, October 10, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA Kennedy’s historic Launch Complex 39A.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California 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. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, 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.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA

A Couple of Facts About the Europa Clipper...

NASA

8 Things to Know About NASA’s Mission to an Ocean Moon of Jupiter (News Release - September 17)

The first NASA spacecraft dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth, Europa Clipper aims to find out if the ice-encased moon Europa could be habitable.

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, the largest that the agency has ever built for a planetary mission, will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Europa, an intriguing icy moon of Jupiter. The spacecraft’s launch period opens on Thursday, October 10.

Data from previous NASA missions has provided scientists with strong evidence that an enormous salty ocean lies underneath the frozen surface of the moon. Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter and conduct 49 close flybys of the moon to gather data needed to determine whether there are places below its thick frozen crust that could support life.

Here are eight things to know about the mission:

1. Europa is one of the most promising places to look for currently habitable conditions beyond Earth.

There’s scientific evidence that the ingredients for life — water, the right chemistry and energy — may exist at Europa right now. This mission will gather the information that scientists need to find out for sure. The moon may hold an internal ocean with twice the water of Earth’s oceans combined, and may also host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.

If the mission determines that Europa is habitable, it would mean there may be more habitable worlds in our Solar System and beyond than we have imagined.

2. The spacecraft will fly through one of the most punishing radiation environments in our Solar System — second only to the Sun’s.

Jupiter is surrounded by a gigantic magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s. As the field spins, it captures and accelerates charged particles, creating radiation that can damage spacecraft. Mission engineers designed a spacecraft vault to shield sensitive electronics from radiation, and they plotted orbits that will limit the time Europa Clipper spends in most radiation-heavy areas around Jupiter.

3. Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter, studying Europa while flying by the moon dozens of times.

The spacecraft will make looping orbits around Jupiter that bring it close to Europa for 49 science-dedicated flybys. On each orbit, the spacecraft will spend less than a day in Jupiter’s dangerous radiation zone near Europa before zipping back out. Two to three weeks later, it will repeat the process, making another flyby.

4. Europa Clipper features NASA’s most sophisticated suite of science instruments yet.

To determine if Europa is habitable, Europa Clipper must assess the moon’s interior, composition and geology. The spacecraft carries nine science instruments and a gravity experiment that uses the telecommunications system. In order to obtain the best science during each flyby, all of the science instruments will operate simultaneously on every pass.

Scientists will then layer the data together to paint a full picture of the moon.

5. With antennas and solar arrays fully deployed, Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft that NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission.

The spacecraft extends 100 feet (30.5 meters) from one end to the other and about 58 feet (17.6 meters) across. That’s bigger than a basketball court, thanks in large part to the solar arrays, which need to be huge so they can collect enough sunlight while near Jupiter to power the instruments, electronics and other subsystems.

6. It’s a long journey to Jupiter.

Jupiter is on average some 480 million miles (about 770 million kilometers) from Earth; both planets are in motion, and a spacecraft can carry only a limited amount of fuel. Mission planners are sending Europa Clipper past Mars and then Earth, using the planets’ gravity as a slingshot to add speed to the spacecraft’s trek. After journeying about 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) over 5½ years, the spacecraft will fire its engines to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030.

7. Institutions across the U.S. and Europe have contributed to Europa Clipper.

Currently, about a thousand people work on the mission, including more than 220 scientists from both the U.S. and Europe. Since the mission was officially approved in 2015, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper, including teams who work for contractors and subcontractors.

8. More than 2.6 million of us are riding along with the spacecraft, bringing greetings from one water world to another.

As part of a mission campaign called “Message in a Bottle,” the spacecraft is carrying a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, cosigned by millions of people from nearly every country in the world. Their names have been stenciled onto a microchip attached to a tantalum metal plate that seals the spacecraft’s electronics vault. The plate also features waveforms of people saying the word “water” in over 100 spoken languages.

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 in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL 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 lift off on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Is Ready to be Fueled Up for Its October Launch...

NASA / Kim Shiflett

Technicians Work to Prepare Europa Clipper for Propellant Loading (News Release)

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission moves closer to launch as technicians worked on Wednesday, September 11, inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to prepare the spacecraft for upcoming propellant loading at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The spacecraft will explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, which is considered one of the most promising habitable environments in the Solar System. The mission will research whether Europa’s subsurface ocean could hold the conditions necessary for life. Europa could have all the “ingredients” for life as we know it: water, organics and chemical energy.

Europa Clipper’s launch period opens on Thursday, October 10. It will lift off on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A. The spacecraft will then embark on a journey of nearly six years and 1.8 billion miles before reaching Jupiter’s orbit in 2030.

The spacecraft is designed to study Europa’s icy shell, underlying ocean and potential plumes of water vapor using a gravity science experiment alongside a suite of nine instruments including cameras, spectrometers, a magnetometer and ice-penetrating radar. The data that Europa Clipper collects could improve our understanding of the potential for life elsewhere in the Solar System.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Is Given a 'Go' to Proceed Towards Flight Next Month...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s Europa Clipper Continues Path to Launch (News Release)

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission passed a mission-planning milestone, known as Key Decision Point E, on Monday.

It is now approved to continue to proceed towards launch, with a launch period that opens on Thursday, October 10.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Ben Smegelsky

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Remains on Track to Launch Less Than Two Months from Now...

NASA

NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission Moving Towards October Launch Date (News Release)

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission remains on track, with a launch period opening on Thursday, October 10. The next major milestone for Clipper is Key Decision Point E on Monday, September 9, in which the agency will decide whether the project is ready to proceed to launch and mission operations.

NASA will provide more information at a mission overview and media briefing targeted for that same week.

The Europa Clipper mission team recently conducted extensive testing and analysis of transistors that help control the flow of electricity on the spacecraft. Analysis of the results suggests that the transistors can support the baseline mission.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Ben Smegelsky

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Has Both Wings Installed...

NASA / Ben Smegelsky

Europa Clipper Solar Array Alignment and Install, Wing Deployment (Photo Release)

Technicians align, install and then extend the second set of solar arrays, measuring 46.5 feet (14.2 meters) long and about 13.5 feet (4.1 meters) high, for NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft inside the agency’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, August 15, 2024.

The huge arrays – spanning more than 100 feet when fully deployed, or about the length of a basketball court – will collect sunlight to power the spacecraft as it flies multiple times around Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, conducting science investigations to determine its potential to support life.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Ben Smegelsky


NASA / Ben Smegelsky


NASA / Ben Smegelsky