After being delayed by Hurricane Milton’s passage, the Europa Clipper spacecraft launched on October 14, 2024, from Kennedy Space Center on top of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. The rocket cleared pad LC-39A at 16:06 UTC, the two lateral boosters separated after three minutes into the flight, and the central stage separated after four minutes.
Falcon Heavy lifts off from pad 39A in Florida for the 11th time! pic.twitter.com/tcZu1LOOOm
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 14, 2024
Due to the high energy required to insert the spacecraft in the planned interplanetary trajectory, the side boosters B1064 and B1065, already used for NASA’s Psyche mission in 2023, were not recovered.
The second stage, with the payload, reached the parking orbit almost eight minutes after the launch. The Earth departure burn started at 16:54 UTC and lasted three minutes. Europa Clipper detached from Falcon 9 second stage ten minutes after the burn en route to the Jovian system.
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Is there life on Europa?
Europa is one of the most promising places in our solar system to host life due to its liquid salty ocean beneath the icy crust and its warm seafloor, heated by the moon’s tidal flexing. Its magnetic field provides additional protection from cosmic and Jupiter’s radiations.
Europa Clipper has been equipped with nine scientific instruments working together simultaneously to study the moon’s characteristics and provide deep insights into its capabilities of hosting life. MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration/Europa (MASPEX) and the SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) will collect samples of the surrounding gas and dust to understand their composition and search for organic molecules, the building blocks of life.
The spacecraft is solar-powered, equipped with two gigantic solar panel wings of about 14 meters in length each. They will collect the faint solar light available at the Jovian system to provide energy to all the vehicle systems and scientific devices.
Europa Clipper will use its three-meter-wide high-gain antenna to contact the Deep Space Network on Earth, receive commands, and transfer data. The communication system will also be used as a scientific instrument to measure the moon’s gravity field, analyzing the Doppler shift and other aspects of the radio signal’s frequency.
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A long and winding road to the Jovian system
The day after the launch, the 63-month journey to the icy target begins. During the interplanetary cruise, the spacecraft will deploy the magnetometer boom, radio antennas, and scientific instruments, testing that everything is ready to achieve the mission’s scientific goals.
The mission trajectory has been designed to benefit from two gravity assists, one by Mars in early March 2025 and one by Earth at the beginning of December 2026. These two pushes and various trajectory correction maneuvers will bring the Europa Clipper to Jupiter’s orbit on April 11, 2030.
Once at the Jovian system, the first celestial body visited will be Ganymede, the largest Jovian moon, with a flyby close as much as two hundred km from the surface. A six-hour burn of the engines and the Ganymede’s gravity assist will slow down Europa Clipper to be captured by Jupiter’s gravity field, starting its tour of Jupiter’s moons and the scientific mission core part.
The four-year Jovian stay will include 49 Europa flybys, nine around Callisto, and seven around Ganymede. The last flyby will be around Europa in 2034, signing the end of the science mission.
Due to the potential contamination of Europa’s surface with terrestrial microbes, the spacecraft will smash into Ganymede’s surface for its grand finale just after the last flyby. The risk of contamination for Ganymede is almost zero since its surface is not active and the icy crust thickness is significantly greater than Europa.
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