The long-awaited Europa Clipper mission, designed to investigate whether Jupiter's icy moon could harbor life, has finally launched. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carried the spacecraft into space on October 14th, 2023. The rocket successfully launched from Launch Complex 39A at 12:06 p.m. Eastern, and after a series of maneuvers, the Europa Clipper spacecraft separated from the upper stage about an hour later. The spacecraft established communication with ground controllers shortly after separation, confirming its health and readiness for the journey.
This mission is one of NASA's most ambitious and expensive scientific ventures, with an estimated total cost of $5.2 billion, including four years of operations after reaching Jupiter in 2030. It was a top priority for flagship-class planetary science missions in decadal surveys, reflecting the decades-long interest in Europa's potential for life.
The mission's primary goal is to determine if Europa, with its suspected subsurface ocean beneath its icy surface, could potentially support life. The moon's combination of liquid water, internal energy sources, and organic compounds offers the basic building blocks for life.
While Europa Clipper won't directly search for life, it will investigate the moon's habitability. "We continue to underscore that Europa Clipper is not actually a life-detection mission but a habitability investigation," said Gina DiBraccio, acting director of NASA's planetary science division, at a pre-launch briefing.
“We want to understand whether Europa has the key ingredients to support life in its oceans,” added Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Equipped with nine dedicated instruments, including cameras, spectrometers, and magnetometers, Europa Clipper will study Europa during 49 flybys, providing “nearly complete coverage” of the moon.
This sophisticated instrument payload requires a large spacecraft. At launch, the spacecraft weighed 5,700 kilograms, and its solar arrays, when fully deployed, extend the spacecraft to 30.5 meters in length.
To shield the spacecraft from the intense radiation emitted by Jupiter's magnetic field, Europa Clipper is equipped with extensive shielding. Despite this protection, there were concerns about the potential degradation of transistors on the spacecraft, which could have required mission adjustments or even replacements, potentially delaying the mission. However, NASA confirmed in September that the transistors would be able to withstand the mission's baseline conditions.
Early development challenges, and their associated costs, posed risks to the mission. Former Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) was a vocal champion for the mission, advocating for its funding. He championed the use of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) for the mission, which would have enabled a direct journey to Jupiter in less than three years. However, in 2020, NASA expressed concerns about potential hardware compatibility issues with SLS, leading Congress to approve a commercial launch. In 2021, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy was chosen as the launch vehicle for $178 million, a small fraction of the cost of a single SLS launch.
Despite the Falcon Heavy's capability, a direct trajectory to Jupiter was not possible even with the use of all three booster cores. Therefore, Europa Clipper will take a longer route, making flybys of Mars in early 2024 and Earth in late 2026, before arriving at Jupiter in April 2030.
The scientific community eagerly anticipates the results of the mission, despite the long wait. "I’ve dreamed of returning to Europa since the Galileo era, so for about 25 years now," said Cynthia Phillips, Europa Clipper project staff scientist at JPL. "I’ve worked actively on the Europa Clipper project for almost 10 years, and I just can’t wait to finally get some new closeup views of the surface of Europa. I know I have to be patient for another six years."