Photo: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida witnessed another pivotal moment in the history of space exploration on Monday, October 14, when a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched what is the most ambitious alien-hunting mission in the history of the world: Europa Clipper. Not only that, but the namesake spacecraft is also the largest planetary exploration ship humans have ever sent into space.
The Europa Clipper is the first-ever spacecraft intended to directly explore Europa, one of Jupiter's 95 moons. And not any moon, but one that has the most potential in the entire solar system to host alien life, or at least the ingredients that make life as we know it possible.
The place is one of four Galilean moons orbiting the gas giant, and the fourth largest of the entire huge group of celestial objects located up there. We know from previous studies conducted both by passing spacecraft (there have been six of them so far, including the Voyager 2 probe and the Galileo orbiter) and by telescopes that Europa has a huge salty ocean underneath a crust of ice.
And by huge I really mean that, as estimates claim the ocean there is two times larger than all of Earth's combined. Not only that, but there's a good chance all that water contains organic compounds and energy sources – pretty much all life needs to get started.
That's exactly what the Europa Clipper is meant to determine: is there life on Europa? And if the answer is yes, that will forever change our understanding of the Universe and our place in it.
I said earlier the spacecraft is the largest of its kind ever made, and I was not joking. With its antennas and solar arrays fully deployed, the thing is 100 feet (30.5 meters) long and 58 feet (17.6 meters) across – that is larger than a basketball court.
The spacecraft packs all the gear it needs to complete its mission. There are no less than nine instruments on board, including radars, magnetometers, sensors, a thermal instrument, and gravity experiment, and they will be used to study the Moon's geology and composition. That will be done from orbit, as the Clipper is not meant to touch down on the surface.
The mission launched this week will take its sweet time reaching its destination. Over the next five and a half years, the Europa Clipper will cover a distance of 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km), and that's because it takes the long route, past Mars and then Earth again, as it needs to be accelerated by slingshot maneuvers.
When it reaches its target in April 2030, the ship will start conducting a total of 49 close flybys (16 miles/25 km above the surface) of the moon, each time spending less than a day in orbit – a requirement to keep the spacecraft safe for the potentially damaging amounts of radiation present around Jupiter. NASA plans to let up to three weeks go by between each pass, so the entire duration of the mission is quite long.
The place is one of four Galilean moons orbiting the gas giant, and the fourth largest of the entire huge group of celestial objects located up there. We know from previous studies conducted both by passing spacecraft (there have been six of them so far, including the Voyager 2 probe and the Galileo orbiter) and by telescopes that Europa has a huge salty ocean underneath a crust of ice.
And by huge I really mean that, as estimates claim the ocean there is two times larger than all of Earth's combined. Not only that, but there's a good chance all that water contains organic compounds and energy sources – pretty much all life needs to get started.
That's exactly what the Europa Clipper is meant to determine: is there life on Europa? And if the answer is yes, that will forever change our understanding of the Universe and our place in it.
I said earlier the spacecraft is the largest of its kind ever made, and I was not joking. With its antennas and solar arrays fully deployed, the thing is 100 feet (30.5 meters) long and 58 feet (17.6 meters) across – that is larger than a basketball court.
The spacecraft packs all the gear it needs to complete its mission. There are no less than nine instruments on board, including radars, magnetometers, sensors, a thermal instrument, and gravity experiment, and they will be used to study the Moon's geology and composition. That will be done from orbit, as the Clipper is not meant to touch down on the surface.
The mission launched this week will take its sweet time reaching its destination. Over the next five and a half years, the Europa Clipper will cover a distance of 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km), and that's because it takes the long route, past Mars and then Earth again, as it needs to be accelerated by slingshot maneuvers.
When it reaches its target in April 2030, the ship will start conducting a total of 49 close flybys (16 miles/25 km above the surface) of the moon, each time spending less than a day in orbit – a requirement to keep the spacecraft safe for the potentially damaging amounts of radiation present around Jupiter. NASA plans to let up to three weeks go by between each pass, so the entire duration of the mission is quite long.
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