NASA has begun assembling the Europa Clipper spacecraft. The mission would investigate the icy, scarred surface of Jupiter’s moon. The name for this is Europe. The agency began preparing for this mission in 2030. NASA has been designing and building 10 instruments for the $4.5 billion mission since 2016, and engineers assemble the parts at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Goals of the Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper will conduct follow-up studies of those made by the Galileo spacecraft during its eight years in Jupiter’s orbit, which pointed to the existence of a subterranean ocean beneath Europa’s ice crust. Plans to send a spacecraft to Europa were initially conceived with projects such as Europa Orbiter and Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, in which a spacecraft would be injected into orbit around Europa.
Europa Clipper, a mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon, comes together! The assembly effort, which includes 9 scientific instruments and other hardware, is underway for the SUV-sized spacecraft. The mission enters its final phase before launch in 2024 pic.twitter.com/imaqZVovMV
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) March 3, 2022
Notably, NASA has asked Elon Musk to lead SpaceX to launch Europa Clipper from Florida in 2024. Guidance for this will be performed aboard the most powerful operational rocket, one of SpaceX’s flagships, the Falcon Heavy.
The Europa Clipper Mission
Europa Clipper (formerly known as Europa Multiple Flyby Mission) is an interplanetary mission under development by NASA consisting of an orbiter. Scheduled for launch in October 2024, the spacecraft is being developed to study the Galilean moon Europa through a series of flybys as it orbits Jupiter
This mission is a scheduled flight of the Planetary Science Division, designated a Large Strategic Science Mission, and funded under the Planetary Missions Program Office’s Solar System Exploration program as a second flight. It is also supported by the new Ocean Worlds Exploration Program.