Europa Clipper Launch

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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A montage of astronomy photos of planets, stars, and galaxies. Text, News from the Universe. 

 

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Europa Clipper Launch. October 18, 2024. A rocket blasts off from a coastal launch site. A stream of flames propels it into the atmosphere. NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft launched rom the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 14, 2024. A ground crew with JPL banners leaps up from their control room desks and claps. In space a second stage separates. A red hot booster engine glows. A complex spacecraft departs into space. An icy world with striated orange lines across its surface. NASA’s Galileo Spacecraft. There is evidence that Jupiter’s moon Europa has a vast saltwater ocean beneath its icy surface. The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa Clipper’s equipment includes ice-penetrating radar, cameras, and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water. The spacecraft will arrive at Europa in April 2030 to conduct 49 close flybys, coming within 16 miles (25 kilometers) of its surface. An animation shows a satellite with solar panels pass close to the moon. This news was brought to you in part by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. 

 

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