Watch: Nasa launches spacecraft to explore Jupiter’s moon

The Europa Clipper mission aims to determine if the vast ocean beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon could support life, exploring its potential habitability.

Allison Cooper 4 minutes read
Image: Nasa/X.

Nasa’s Europa Clipper has embarked on a long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life.

According to Nasa, the spacecraft launched yesterday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

The Europa Clipper, the largest spacecraft built by Nasa, is on a mission to study an ocean world beyond Earth.

The spacecraft will travel 2.9 billion kilometres on a trajectory that will leverage the power of gravity assist, first to Mars in four months and then back to Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026.

According to Nasa’s space glossary, ‘gravity assist’ is a technique that involves a spacecraft taking angular momentum from a planet’s solar orbit (or a satellite’s orbit) to accelerate the spacecraft, or the reverse.

After it begins orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times.

“Congratulations to our Europa Clipper team for beginning the first journey to an ocean world beyond Earth,” says Nasa administrator Bill Nelson.

“Nasa leads the world in exploration and discovery, and the Europa Clipper mission is no different. By exploring the unknown, Europa Clipper will help us better understand whether there is the potential for life not just within our solar system, but among the billions of moons and planets beyond our sun.”

About five minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s second stage fired up and its nose cone opened to reveal Europa Clipper. About an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket.

Ground controllers received a signal soon after, and two-way communication was established with Nasa’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia.

“We could not be more excited for the incredible and unprecedented science Nasa’s Europa Clipper mission will deliver in the generations to come,” says Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington.

“Everything in Nasa science is interconnected, and Europa Clipper’s scientific discoveries will build upon the legacy that our other missions exploring Jupiter – including Juno, Galileo, and Voyager – created in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”

The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life.

Europa is about the size of our own moon, but its interior is different. Information from Nasa’s Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa’s ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.

If the mission determines Europa is habitable, it may mean there are more habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond than imagined.

“We’re ecstatic to send Europa Clipper on its way to explore a potentially habitable ocean world, thanks to our colleagues and partners who’ve worked so hard to get us to this day,” said Laurie Leshin, director, Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“Europa Clipper will undoubtedly deliver mind-blowing science. While always bittersweet to send something we’ve laboured over for years off on its long journey, we know this remarkable team and spacecraft will expand our knowledge of our solar system and inspire future exploration.”

Europa exploration

In 2031, the spacecraft will begin conducting its science-dedicated flybys of Europa. Coming as close as 25km to the surface, Europa Clipper is equipped with nine science instruments and a gravity experiment, including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water.

To power those instruments in the faint sunlight that reaches Jupiter, Europa Clipper also carries the largest solar arrays Nasa has ever used for an interplanetary mission. With arrays extended, the spacecraft spans 30.5m from end to end. With propellant loaded, it weighs about 5 900kg.

Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterise its geology.

In all, more than 4 000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper’s mission since it was formally approved in 2015.

Read original story on www.citizen.co.za

Allison Cooper 4 minutes read
Back to top button