Key Facts About Europa Clipper - Spacecraft Type: Orbiter - Launch Window Opens: October 10, 2024 - Science Instruments: 9 - Science Target: Europa - Jupiter Orbit Insertion: April 2030 - What will Europa Clipper do? Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life. The mission’s three main science objectives are to understand the nature of the ice shell and the ocean beneath it, along with the moon’s composition and geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astro-biological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will perform dozens of close flybys of Jupiter’s moon Europa, gathering detailed measurements to investigate the moon. The spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter, will make nearly 50 flybys of Europa at closest-approach altitudes as low as 16 miles (25 kilometers) above the surface, soaring over a different location during each flyby to scan nearly the entire moon.
NASA’s Largest Planetary Mission Spacecraft
With its massive solar arrays and radar antennas, Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission. The spacecraft has large solar arrays to collect enough light for its power needs as it operates in the Jupiter system, which is more than five times as far from the Sun as Earth. The spacecraft will be about 16 feet (5 meters) in height. With its arrays deployed, the spacecraft spans more than 100 feet (30.5 meters) and has a dry mass (no propellant in the tanks) of 7,145 pounds (3,241 kg).
Designed for Jupiter’s Tough Radiation Environment
Because Europa is bathed in radiation trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field, Europa Clipper's payload and other electronics will be enclosed in a thick-walled vault. This strategy of armoring up to go to Jupiter with a radiation vault was developed and successfully used for the first time by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The vault walls – made of titanium and aluminum – will act as a radiation shield against most of the high-energy atomic particles, dramatically slowing down degradation of the spacecraft's electronics.
Life Beyond Earth
Europa shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. Beyond Earth, Europa is considered one of the most promising places where we might find currently habitable environments in our solar system. Europa Clipper will determine whether there are places below Europa’s surface that could support life.
The spacecraft's payload will include cameras and spectrometers to produce high-resolution images and composition maps of Europa's surface and thin atmosphere, an ice-penetrating radar to search for subsurface water, and a magnetometer and gravity measurements to unlock clues about its ocean and deep interior.
#space #spaceexploration #discovery
NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will perform dozens of close flybys of Jupiter’s moon Europa, gathering detailed measurements to investigate the moon. The spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter, will make nearly 50 flybys of Europa at closest-approach altitudes as low as 16 miles (25 kilometers) above the surface, soaring over a different location during each flyby to scan nearly the entire moon.
NASA’s Largest Planetary Mission Spacecraft
With its massive solar arrays and radar antennas, Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission. The spacecraft has large solar arrays to collect enough light for its power needs as it operates in the Jupiter system, which is more than five times as far from the Sun as Earth. The spacecraft will be about 16 feet (5 meters) in height. With its arrays deployed, the spacecraft spans more than 100 feet (30.5 meters) and has a dry mass (no propellant in the tanks) of 7,145 pounds (3,241 kg).
Designed for Jupiter’s Tough Radiation Environment
Because Europa is bathed in radiation trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field, Europa Clipper's payload and other electronics will be enclosed in a thick-walled vault. This strategy of armoring up to go to Jupiter with a radiation vault was developed and successfully used for the first time by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The vault walls – made of titanium and aluminum – will act as a radiation shield against most of the high-energy atomic particles, dramatically slowing down degradation of the spacecraft's electronics.
Life Beyond Earth
Europa shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. Beyond Earth, Europa is considered one of the most promising places where we might find currently habitable environments in our solar system. Europa Clipper will determine whether there are places below Europa’s surface that could support life.
The spacecraft's payload will include cameras and spectrometers to produce high-resolution images and composition maps of Europa's surface and thin atmosphere, an ice-penetrating radar to search for subsurface water, and a magnetometer and gravity measurements to unlock clues about its ocean and deep interior.
#space #spaceexploration #discovery
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TechTranscript
00:00The most exciting thing about Europa can be summarized in one word, water.
00:06Now think about all the water on Earth, and double that.
00:10That's what we think is on Europa.
00:13We need to go there to explore it, to understand,
00:16is this place a habitable environment that could potentially support life?
00:22Getting close to Europa is a huge challenge.
00:24It sits in the worst possible radiation environment, trapped by Jupiter.
00:30What is Europa?
00:34Europa is a moon of Jupiter, about the size of Earth's moon,
00:39which has an icy surface that probably hides a subsurface ocean.
00:45Scientists think Europa has the key ingredients to support life as we know it.
00:50Number one, water.
00:52Number two, energy.
00:54And three, essential chemical building blocks.
00:58For the first time ever, we're sending a spacecraft completely dedicated to studying this moon.
01:03The three main things that we're going to explore at Europa
01:06are the ice and the ocean and understand that intersection between the two,
01:10study the chemical composition of the moon,
01:12as well as the geology and whether it's active currently.
01:16Europa Clipper is not specifically a life search mission.
01:19We're going to understand the potential habitability of Europa.
01:25This spacecraft has nine instruments and a gravity science investigation.
01:31Five of the instruments are called remote sensing instruments
01:35because they measure light reflected off Europa, like a camera or a spectrometer.
01:40The other four instruments are measuring the environment around them,
01:45like sniffing gases or dust.
01:48Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for a planetary mission.
01:54It weighs 13,000 pounds, six and a half tons.
01:57That's like the size of a huge African elephant.
02:00And the solar arrays are massive.
02:02If you put the solar arrays at the toes of the Statue of Liberty,
02:05the other end of the arrays would come up to the Statue of Liberty's crown.
02:08So not only are they big, these things are technological marvels.
02:12They are being bathed in radiation all the time
02:15and they have to survive the entire mission like that.
02:19Jupiter's radiation environment is intense
02:22and Europa sits in the worst part of that environment.
02:25Jupiter acts like a giant particle accelerator.
02:29There are charged particles trapped in Jupiter's magnetosphere that rotate with it.
02:34And these particles slam against Europa and will slam into our spacecraft as well.
02:40We protect the spacecraft in two ways.
02:42Number one, we try to minimize the amount of time we spend in there,
02:45which is why we are orbiting Jupiter and just flying by Europa.
02:50The second way we protect against the radiation is by having an electronics vault
02:54that we put our computer and some of the other sensitive electronics inside,
02:59which is made of about a third of an inch of aluminum.
03:03With each flyby of Europa, the outside surface of the spacecraft
03:06sees the equivalent of a million chest X-rays just as we're flying by.
03:12It's a pretty long trip to get to Jupiter from Earth,
03:14but not that bad from a planetary standpoint.
03:17From launch to the time we get to Jupiter is about five and a half years.
03:21And along the way, we have a flyby of Mars and then another flyby of Earth
03:26to get gravity assists to slingshot the spacecraft out to Jupiter.
03:34I hope for the future explorers who are watching this at home
03:38that they take away from this that humanity, when we come together,
03:42can achieve really cool things.
03:44This mission has been a long time coming,
03:47and we're so excited about what we're going to see when we get there.
03:52We are in a golden age of robotic spaceflight exploration.
03:56How could you not be excited about something as monumental as this?
04:02I am most excited about the potential to unlock the secrets of Europa,
04:05the potential to really understand this crazy world that exists
04:10and has likely existed in this condition for four billion years.
04:14NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
04:44NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology