NASA launched its Europa Clipper spacecraft yesterday as part of a $5.2B mission to detect conditions for life on one of Jupiter’s 95 moons, Europa. The mission is NASA’s first to Jupiter since 2011 and the product of a yearslong partnership with SpaceX.
The launch—on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket—took off at 12:06 pm ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida (watch video). The nearly 13,000-pound, 100-foot-long spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles to arrive in Jupiter’s orbit in April 2030. It will make 49 flybys of Europa—once every three weeks over roughly four years—to observe the icy moon’s composition. The instruments it will use include radar to penetrate Europa’s 10- to 15-mile deep ice sheet, anticipating a deep salty ocean underneath.
NASA’s mission comes after the April 2023 launch of Europe's Juice mission to explore three of Jupiter's moons: Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. The Juice spacecraft will reach Jupiter in July 2031 and spend four years orbiting the planet and its moons. NASA’s spacecraft will arrive first, using a cosmic piggyback (see explanation).
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