NASA launched a spacecraft from Florida on Monday, embarking on a mission to investigate whether Jupiter’s moon Europa could harbor conditions suitable for life, with a focus on the vast subsurface ocean believed to exist beneath its thick ice shell.
The Europa Clipper spacecraft, powered by solar energy, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket under clear skies. The probe is set to reach Jupiter in 2030, after traveling approximately 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km) over 5-1/2 years. The launch, originally scheduled for last week, was delayed due to Hurricane Milton.
It is the largest spacecraft NASA has built for a planetary mission, at about 100 feet (30.5 meters) long and about 58 feet (17.6 meters) wide with its antennas and solar arrays fully deployed – bigger than a basketball court – while weighing approximately 13,000 pounds (6,000 kg).
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Even though Europa, the fourth-largest of Jupiter’s 95 officially recognized moons, is just a quarter of Earth’s diameter, its vast global ocean of salty liquid water may contain twice the water in Earth’s oceans. Earth’s oceans are thought to have been the birthplace for life on our planet.
Europa, whose diameter of roughly 1,940 miles (3,100 km) is approximately 90% that of our moon, has been viewed as a potential habitat for life beyond Earth in our solar system. Its icy shell is believed to be 10-15 miles (15-25 km) thick, sitting atop an ocean 40-100 miles (60-150 km) deep.
NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free told a prelaunch briefing on Sunday that Europa boasts one of the most promising environments for potential habitability in our solar system, beyond Earth, though he noted that this mission will not be a search for any actual living organisms.
“What we discover on Europa,” Free said, “will have profound implications for the study of astrobiology and how we view our place in the universe.”
“Scientists believe Europa has suitable conditions below its icy surface to support life. Its conditions are water, energy, chemistry and stability,” said Sandra Connelly, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate.
Among the mission objectives are measuring the internal ocean and the layer of ice above it, mapping the moon’s surface composition, and hunting for plumes of water vapor that may be venting from Europa’s icy crust. The plan is for Europa Clipper starting in 2031 to conduct 49 close flybys of Europa over a span of three years, coming as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) to the moon’s surface.
Europa Clipper will be operating in an intense radiation environment around Jupiter, our solar system’s biggest planet.
Jupiter is enveloped by a magnetic field about 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s. This magnetic field spins, capturing and accelerating charged particles and creating radiation that could harm spacecraft. NASA fashioned a vault made of titanium and aluminum inside the Europa Clipper to protect its sensitive electronics from this radiation.
“One of the Europa Clipper mission’s main challenges is delivering a spacecraft hardy enough to withstand the pummeling of radiation from Jupiter but also sensitive enough to gather the measurements needed to investigate Europa’s environment,” Connelly said.
NASA reported that the Europa Clipper is equipped with over 6,060 pounds (2,750 kg) of propellant to propel it toward Jupiter. For the launch, the spacecraft was secured inside the protective nose cone atop the rocket.
Rather than taking a direct route to Jupiter, the spacecraft will fly by Mars and then back by Earth, using each planet's gravity to boost its speed like a slingshot. Its large solar arrays, which were folded up during the launch, will gather sunlight to power the spacecraft's nine scientific instruments, electronics, and other subsystems.
