Lift Off! NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission To Jupiter’s Moon Successfully Launched (VIDEO)

NASA Europa Clipper’s mission to hunt for alien life on Jupiter’s moon, 628 million km from Earth, was successfully launched on 14 October.

The Europa Clipper Mission, originally scheduled to launch on Thursday, 10 October 2024, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, has been postponed. NASA and SpaceX stand down from the launch attempt as Hurricane Milton approaches.

It will take about five and a half years for Europa Clipper to reach Jupiter’s orbit. Let’s dig deeper into the mission’s goals.

Europa Clipper Launched Towards Jupiter’s Icy Moon

Updated on 14th October

On Monday, 14th October, NASA’s Europa mission successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The mission is now on its way to Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon, to explore the signs of extraterrestrial life on it.

The mission’s journey won’t be direct; it will utilize a gravity assist by slingshotting around Mars early next year and then looping back around Earth in late 2026. The spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter and its icy moon in 2030, where it will collect data for over four years.

Main Goal Of The Europa Clipper Mission

Europa Clipper Mission’s main science goal is to determine if Jupiter’s moon Europa has conditions suitable to support life.

The mission’s main science objectives are:

• to understand the nature of Europa’s ice shell and the ocean beneath it 
• analyse the moon’s composition and geology.

Europa is one of the most promising places in the solar system to search for life beyond Earth. So, detailed exploration of Jupiter’s moon will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will be equipped with cameras and spectrometers to capture high-resolution images and create composition maps of Europa’s surface and thin atmosphere, and a specific ice-penetrating radar to search for subsurface water. The spacecraft will also carry a thermal instrument to identify locations of warmer ice and possibly recent eruptions of water, and instruments to measure the composition of tiny particles in the moon’s thin atmosphere and surrounding space environment. The spacecraft will perform nearly 50 flybys of Europa, collecting detailed data to further investigate the moon.

Last Touch Before The Launch

NASA and SpaceX technicians are preparing the Europa Clipper for the upcoming launch. Firstly, they connected the spacecraft to the payload adapter, inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With Europa Clipper securely attached to the payload adapter, specialists then connected the combined assembly to the payload attach fitting. These steps will allow the spacecraft to be integrated with the rocket in the coming days.

Next, experts removed various coverings that shielded sensitive parts of the spacecraft during processing. Finally, teams encapsulated the spacecraft inside payload fairings, designed to protect the spacecraft from aerodynamic pressure and heat during launch. After liftoff, the fairings will separate once the rocket’s second stage reaches a sufficient altitude, approximately 5 minutes into the flight, and the fairings will return to Earth where SpaceX plans to recover them.

On 4 October, NASA, SpaceX, and Europa Clipper mission managers met at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to conduct a Flight Readiness Review. During the review, teams provided an update on the mission’s status and certified its readiness to proceed with final launch preparations.

For a detailed schedule of live events, visit the link: https://go.nasa.gov/europaclipperlive