Europa Clipper On its Way

Europa Clipper On its Way

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 14, 2024 5:20 pm ET | Last Updated: October 14, 2024 11:16 pm ET

The Europa Clipper spacecraft is on its way to Jupiter. After an on-time liftoff, it separated from the rocket, began transmitting back to Earth, and unfolded its huge solar arrays.  It has a long trip ahead, 1.8 billion miles, that will take it to Mars and back to Earth for gravity assists, finally reaching its destination in April 2030.

Weather was about as perfect as it gets for launch at 12:06 pm ET today on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Liftoff of Europa Clipper on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, October 14, 2024. Screengrab.

SpaceX usually recovers at least the two side boosters of Falcon Heavy and sometimes the central core, but in this case all the fuel was needed to send Clipper on its way so none were recovered this time.

It was just over an hour before the spacecraft separated from the Falcon Heavy’s second stage.

Europa Clipper is on its own after separating from the Falcon Heavy second stage. October 14, 2024, Screengrab.

Shortly thereafter, mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA cheered when Acquisition of Signal (AOS) was achieved and they knew they could communicate with Clipper.  The next major milestone, deployment of the solar arrays, also went as planned about four hours after launch.

Illustration of Europa Clipper with its solar arrays deployed. Credit: NASA


Even with all the boost possible from Falcon Heavy, Clipper still needs a bit more to reach Jupiter and will get it from gravity assists at Mars just over four months from now and Earth in December 2026.

Illustration of Europa Clipper’s trajectory to Jupiter. Credit: NASA. Based on today’s launch date, it will swing by Mars on March 1, 2025 and Earth in December 2026.

Clipper is the largest planetary spacecraft ever built by NASA.  Weighing 12,800 pounds, of which 6,000 pounds is fuel, it’s 15.5 feet tall and about 100 feet long — the size of a basketball court — with the solar arrays deployed.

Clipper will investigate Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons. Europa is covered in ice, but based on data from earlier spacecraft that passed by, scientists think an ocean of liquid water lies underneath. Where there’s water, there may be life, albeit microbial. Clipper is not looking for life itself, but to determine if Europa is habitable — capable of supporting life.

Europa as seen in 2022 by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which is orbiting Jupiter. Credit: NASA

Clipper will be placed into a 21-day elliptical orbit around Jupiter and swing by Europa 49 times — as close as 16 miles to the surface — to collect data with nine scientific instruments including an ice-penetrating radar. Jupiter has a punishing radiation environment and Clipper will fly through the most intense region one day of each orbit, dipping down to take readings and then moving away to limit its exposure. That is particularly important because of concerns that the spacecraft’s transistors may not be as radiation-hardened as expected. Engineers tested the transistors before launch and are confident they will work just fine in part because they can anneal themselves during the portion of each orbit when they are outside the strongest dosage.

NASA’s scientific priorities are guided by Decadal Surveys produced once every 10 years — a decade — by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The 2011 Decadal Survey for planetary science recommended a Europa mission as its second highest priority (returning samples from Mars was first) because of its high pricetag, then estimated at $4.7 billion.

JPL redesigned the mission to lower the cost to $2 billion, but it grew thereafter to $5.2 billion. Some of that is the effect of inflation, but it’s also due to cost growth. Thomas Zurbuchen, then the head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, cancelled one of the instruments, ICEMAG, in 2019 and replaced it with a less expensive alternative, but costs kept rising.

Europa Clipper owes its existence in large part to former Congressman John Culberson (R-TX) who chaired the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee from 2014-2018. A passionate advocate for the mission because he firmly believes there is life in Europa’s ocean, he added money to NASA’s budget year after year to fund the mission even though NASA didn’t request it. He put the language directing NASA to build Europa Clipper in the bill itself, not only in the report, and would proudly say it was the only NASA mission required by law.

He lost his reelection bid in 2018, but the program had progressed far enough by then to continue anyway. Culberson did not prevail on his determination to launch Europa Clipper on the Space Launch System or for NASA to build a lander as well as an orbiter. SLS basically was too expensive (the Office of Management and Budget said it would cost $2 billion compared to $0.5 billion for a commercial rocket like Falcon Heavy) and many viewed a lander as premature since so little is known about Europa’s surface.

With Clipper on its way, the focus is on the future, not the past. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said “Today, we embark on a new journey across the solar system in search of the ingredients for life within Jupiter’s icy moon. Our next chapter in space exploration has begun.”

Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) offered congratulations on X.  Their districts are near JPL.

Rep. Zoe Lofren (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-IL), Ranking Member of its space subcommittee, issued a joint press release.

“Constructing a highly capable spacecraft designed to withstand the harsh radiation environment of Jupiter and carry out the first in-depth study of Europa was no easy feat,” said Ranking Members Lofgren and Sorensen. “Congratulations to NASA and the entire Europa Clipper team of scientists, engineers, and technicians at NASA Centers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Applied Physics Laboratory, contractors, and universities—on a successful launch today.”

The team worked through many challenges along the way, especially in recent months as they investigated a critical transistor issue and dealt with devastating hurricanes in the region.

“We recognize the incredible work, sacrifice, and dedication that went into reaching this milestone,” the Members continued. “We look forward to the exciting science that Clipper will conduct in its study of Europa, a moon that possesses one of the most promising environments in the Solar System for potentially habitable conditions beyond the Earth. We wish the Clipper team good luck on the long voyage to the Jupiter system.”

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2024 11:16 pm ET

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