NASA, SpaceX set for launch of historic Europa...
- by NASASpaceFlight.com
- Oct 14, 2024
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NASA and SpaceX launched NASA’s Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The Falcon Heavy launched during an instantaneous launch window on Monday, Oct. 14, at 12:05 PM EDT (16:05 UTC) from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. If Monday’s attempt scrubbed, a backup launch opportunity was available for Tuesday, Oct. 15, as well as throughout the rest of October, but that is not needed.
Europa Clipper is perhaps the most important planetary science mission launching this decade. One of NASA’s large strategic science missions (also known as a flagship mission), Europa Clipper will be the largest planetary science mission ever developed by NASA and the first mission to perform an in-depth investigation of Europa and its potential habitability.
Europa Clipper’s history
Planetary scientists and space agencies alike have long desired and planned a mission to Europa. Scientists first found indications of water ice on Europa in the 1950s, and subsequent missions to Jupiter, such as Galileo, Cassini-Huygens, and Juno, have revealed more about the planet’s watery nature. This culminated in the discovery of a subsurface ocean beneath the moon’s icy surface.
However, while scientists have substantial evidence for the existence of a subsurface ocean, most notably through the presence of surface water vapor plumes, the existence of the ocean has not been explicitly confirmed. Given Europa’s location in the solar system and the likelihood of a subsurface ocean containing elements that allow for the existence of life, the need for a mission to Europa increased substantially throughout the 2000s and 2010s.
A Europa orbiter mission was first proposed to NASA in 1997 for the agency’s Discovery program. Though this mission was ultimately not selected, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) later announced that the agency would conduct an orbiter mission to Europa in the future.
Around the time of this first mission proposal, NASA’s Galileo mission was in orbit around Jupiter and regularly made flybys of the moon during its main mission and its extended mission, which was known as the Galileo Europa Mission (GEM). Galileo’s extensive investigations of Europa and Jupiter’s other icy moons allowed scientists to make many discoveries regarding icy moons and Europa, especially regarding the moon’s potential for harboring microbial extraterrestrial life. Following Galileo’s mission, NASA and JPL began conducting preliminary studies into missions to Europa.
Several proposed missions emerged from these preliminary studies. The first was the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission, which was planned for launch in 2015 and expected to explore Europa and Jupiter’s other icy moons, Callisto and Ganymede. JIMO was ultimately canceled in 2005 as NASA shifted its priorities to crewed space missions, and it lost funding. Following JIMO, NASA joined the European Space Agency (ESA) in formulating the Europa Jupiter System Mission – Laplace (EJSM-Laplace) mission, which was also ultimately canceled in 2011 due to budgeting issues on NASA’s side. ESA would continue the development of the EJSM-Laplace mission without NASA, eventually culminating in the agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission, which launched in April 2023.
Though EJSM-Laplace’ was canceled and ESA moved forward with its development of a Europa mission, NASA still had plans for a Europa orbiter and would use its infrastructure from EJSM-Laplace to create the Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO). JEO was originally scheduled for launch in 2020 and would have explored both Europa and Io. During the development of JEO, however, NASA’s budget again forced changes, and the mission was re-formulated into the Europa Multiple Flyby Mission, which was later renamed to Europa Clipper.
Juno image of Europa in September 2022. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill)
The desire for Europa Clipper was further bolstered when the National Research Council recommended a mission to Europa in 2013. It was decided that the mission would be a joint mission between Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and JPL.
In March 2013, the mission was granted $75 million to assist with the formation of mission teams, activities, mission goals, and instrument development (which was recommended by the 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey). The mission’s funding was significantly increased in May 2014, when a House bill increased the mission’s funding budget for the 2014 fiscal year from $15 million to $100 million, which was also to be used for mission formulation needs. What’s more, a further $30 million was granted to the mission for use in preliminary studies, and additional bipartisan support for the mission was promised following the 2014 United States election.
NASA selected the nine instruments that would fly with Europa Clipper in May 2015. The instruments were budgeted at approximately $110 million over the following three years. NASA formally approved the concept for Europa Clipper in June 2015, officially moving the mission to the formulation stage. In February 2017, Europa Clipper moved from Phase A to Phase B, also known as the preliminary design phase. The House Space Subcommittee held hearings in July 2017 regarding scheduling Europa Clipper as one of NASA’s large strategic science missions, which was approved. Phase B would continue until August 2019, when the mission moved to Phase C — final design and fabrication.
From 2019 to 2022, the mission’s design was finalized and the first components of the spacecraft began to be constructed. In March 2022, Europa Clipper moved to Phase D, assembly, testing, and launch, and the spacecraft’s main body was completed on June 7, 2022. On Jan. 30, 2024, all nine of Europa Clipper’s science instruments were integrated into the spacecraft, with some antennas and solar arrays being added to the spacecraft a few months later.
Europa Clipper being encapsulated within Falcon Heavy’s payload fairings on Oct. 2. (Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky)
By March 2024, the spacecraft successfully completed all of its main testing objectives and was prepared for its shipment to the Kennedy Space Center. In May 2024, the spacecraft arrived in Florida, and the mission’s final pre-launch review was completed in September 2024.
Europa Clipper was initially scheduled to launch at the opening of its launch window on Oct. 10, 2024. However, due to Hurricane Milton’s approach and ultimate landfall on Florida’s west coast, the launch of the mission was delayed indefinitely until the storm safely passed through the Kennedy Space Center and the center was declared safe from any substantial damage. The center was reopened over the weekend of Oct. 11, and a new launch date — Oct. 14 — was announced. During the storm, the spacecraft was safely stored in a secure location.
The Europa Clipper spacecraft and mission
The Europa Clipper mission, now valued at $2 billion, is designed to investigate Europa’s interior and ocean, geology, chemistry, and potential habitability. As mentioned, the spacecraft will carry a suite of nine science instruments that will enable the mission’s investigations. Europa Clipper’s instruments can be divided into four main groups: imagers, plasma and magnetic field instruments, radar and gravity instruments, and chemical analysis instruments.
Diagram of the Europa Clipper spacecraft and its instruments. (Credit: Caltech)
Europa Clipper’s two main imagers are the Europa Imaging System (EIS) and Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS). The EIS features a wide-angle camera and a narrow-angle camera, both of which have eight-megapixel sensors that will produce high-resolution color and stereoscopic imagery of Europa’s geologic activity, surface elevations, and more. E-THEMIS will use infrared light to determine where warm liquid water may be located on Europa’s surface, which could indicate places where water plumes once erupted. E-THEMIS will also determine the small-scale properties of Europa’s surface by performing in-depth observations of Europa’s surface texture.
Two instruments will be onboard Europa Clipper to perform spectrometry at Europa. The Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS) instrument features a telescope that collects UV light and creates images that the spacecraft’s spectrograph uses to determine the composition of Europa’s atmospheric gases and surface materials and search for plume activity around Europa. The Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE) instrument is an infrared spectrometer that is expected to map the distribution of ice, salt, organics, hotspots, and more around Europa’s surface, which will allow scientists to determine Europa’s geologic history and habitability.
The Europa Clipper Magnetometer (ECM) and Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS) instruments will perform plasma and magnetic field measurements for the mission. The ECM is a magnetometer that will investigate the existence, depth, and salinity of Europa’s subsurface ocean and measure the thickness and characteristics of the moon’s icy surface shell. The ECM will also study the moon’s thin ionized atmosphere and how it interacts with Jupiter’s ionized atmosphere. PIMS and its Faraday cups will distinguish the distortions of magnetic fields near Europa that are caused by the moon’s ionosphere and plasma trapped within Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Interestingly, these distortions could carry information regarding Europa’s ocean.
Through radar and gravity measurements, details regarding Europa’s interior and other properties can be revealed. Europa Clipper will perform a variety of gravity and radar measurements using its suite of antennas and the Doppler effect. Additionally, the Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON) instrument, an ice-penetrating radar, will investigate the structure and thickness of Europa’s icy shell, as well as the moon’s surface elevations, composition, roughness, and atmosphere.
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