After around a decade of work manufacturing, testing, and preparing, the Europa Clipper spacecraft is now officially on its way to Jupiter. Yesterday morning the spacecraft lifted off on top of a Falcon Heavy from Pad 39A in Florida.
This came after a one-day delay due to Hurricane Milton. This launch also added to a new record for SpaceX as the company launched 4 rockets within 48 hours.
Falcon Heavy Launch
To put in perspective the stakes of this mission, it’s important to highlight the investment NASA has made in this project along with its size. In total, more than 4,000 people have contributed to the Europa Clipper mission since it was formally approved in 2015. Not only did they spend around a decade working on it, but the spacecraft is reported to have cost around $5.2 billion in total. As for size, Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission, spanning more than 100 feet (30 meters) with its solar arrays deployed and an at-launch weight of 13,000 lbs / 6,000 kg.
With that in mind, the spacecraft was integrated into the Falcon Heavy’s payload fairings a few days prior. This led to launch day when the vehicle was vertical and ready for liftoff. As the clock hit zero, the Falcon Heavy ignited its engines and lifted off. From here it began accelerating before reaching Max Q, the moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket, at T + 1:16.
About two minutes later we heard the call for booster engine cutoff followed immediately by side booster separation. On this flight due to the spacecraft needing the maximum performance of the vehicle, none of the three boosters were recovered and instead, they used every bit of propellant to accelerate the payload before falling into the ocean.
At T + 4:10 the upper stage separated from the core booster and then ignited its vacuum-optimized engine. We then saw payload fairing separation revealing the Europa Clipper spacecraft. Over the next hour, the upper stage would go on to conduct multiple engine burns before it was finally time for payload deployment. Here, the spacecraft, still folded up separated from the upper stage beginning its very long journey to Jupiter.
Not long after NASA tweeted saying, “After a successful launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA Kennedy, Europa Clipper is on its way from our ocean world to another to see if Jupiter’s moon Europa has conditions suitable for life.”
This launch was also significant for SpaceX as it added to a total of 4 launches within 48 hours. This included Starship Flight 5, the Europa Clipper Launch, and two Falcon 9 missions earlier today. It also utilized 4 different launch sites located around the country.
Focusing back on the mission, not long after launch NASA released a statement saying, “The second stage of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy completed its Earth departure burn, and NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft separated from the second stage. Technicians will now work to acquire signal from the spacecraft to verify its health and the spacecraft will spread its massive solar arrays to power itself as it continues on its mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa” they said.
Ground controllers received a signal soon after, and two-way communication was established at 1:13 p.m. with NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. Mission teams celebrated as initial telemetry reports showed Europa Clipper in good health and operating as expected.
Later that day, they released a second statement highlighting, “Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California have confirmed that the two solar arrays flanking the main body of the Europa Clipper spacecraft have fully unfolded. This means that the spacecraft now has a reliable source of power for the rest of its journey to Jupiter and tour of the Jovian system” they said. This process began with the cutting of hold-downs keeping the solar arrays folded against the sides of the spacecraft and then the unfolding of one “wing” at a time.
Soon after NASA administrator Bill Nelson was quoted saying, “Congratulations to our Europa Clipper team for beginning the first journey to an ocean world beyond Earth. 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” he said.
Spacecraft Overview
Even though Falcon Heavy’s job is done, Europa Clipper has a lot of work ahead of it. Jupiter is on average some 480 million miles from Earth — as both planets are in motion around the Sun, the distances between the two vary. Europa Clipper will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) over more than five years to reach the Jovian system in April 2030, using “gravity assists” of two other planets to help it accelerate towards Jupiter.
Now that it’s launched, Europa Clipper will first head toward Mars, coming to within 300 to 600 miles of the surface, then slingshot back toward Earth, coming about 2,000 miles from the planet. Through these gravity assists, Europa Clipper will achieve the velocity needed to reach Jupiter in April 2030, when the spacecraft will fire its engines to enter orbit around the solar system’s largest planet.
After it begins orbiting Jupiter, Europa Clipper will spend about a year altering its trajectory to prepare for its first Europa flyby. The spacecraft will then spend about three years soaring past Europa dozens of times and sending data back to Earth. Over the course of the mission, the spacecraft will investigate nearly the entire moon.
The main objective and purpose of this spacecraft is to determine if Europa has conditions suitable to support life. More specifically, 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 characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa is trying to help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
In 2031, the spacecraft will begin conducting its science-dedicated flybys of Europa. Coming as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) 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. As the most sophisticated suite of science instruments NASA has ever sent to Jupiter, they will work in concert to learn more about the moon’s icy shell, thin atmosphere, and deep interior.
The mission is hoping to provide a lot of invaluable data. Europa shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. Beyond Earth, Europa is considered one of the most promising places where we might find currently habitable environments in our solar system.
The spacecraft’s payload will include cameras and spectrometers to produce high-resolution images and composition maps of Europa’s surface and thin atmosphere, an ice-penetrating radar to search for subsurface water, and a magnetometer and gravity measurements to unlock clues about its ocean and deep interior. The spacecraft will also carry a thermal instrument to pinpoint locations of warmer ice and perhaps recent eruptions of water, and instruments to measure the composition of tiny particles in the moon’s thin atmosphere and surrounding space environment.
One of the major challenges of this mission is the high radiation. For context, the Jupiter system has some of the most intense radiation in the solar system. Jupiter is surrounded by a gigantic magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s. As the field spins, it captures and accelerates charged particles, creating radiation that can damage spacecraft.
Mission engineers designed a spacecraft vault to shield sensitive electronics from radiation, and they plotted orbits that will limit the time Europa Clipper spends in most radiation-heavy areas around Jupiter. The vault walls – made of titanium and aluminum – will act as a radiation shield against most of the high-energy atomic particles, dramatically slowing down the degradation of the spacecraft’s electronics.
Not long ago, there were some concerns with the spacecraft’s ability to withstand the radiation. In a quote, the agency said, “Engineers with NASA’s Europa Clipper mission continue to conduct extensive testing of transistors that help control the flow of electricity on the spacecraft. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission, began the tests after learning that some of these parts may not withstand the radiation of the Jupiter system, which is the most intense radiation environment in the solar system” they said. Fortunately, since then they have completed more tests and are confident that the spacecraft is capable and shouldn’t run into any issues.
With the next significant milestone not set to happen until February of next year, we likely won’t hear too much about the spacecraft as it’s busy traveling millions of miles.
In one last quote, the project manager at NASA JPL said, “As Europa Clipper embarks on its journey, I’ll be thinking about the countless hours of dedication, innovation, and teamwork that made this moment possible. This launch isn’t just the next chapter in our exploration of the solar system; it’s a leap toward uncovering the mysteries of another ocean world, driven by our shared curiosity and continued search to answer the question, ‘are we alone?’”
Conclusion
Yesterday morning SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket with the Europa Clipper spacecraft on top. By now it has been successfully deployed and is generating power after unfolding its massive solar arrays. It now has a very long journey ahead of it as it makes its way to Jupiter.