NASA's Europa Clipper Mission Set to Launch, Aiming to Explore Jupiter's Ocean Moon

A spacecraft is scheduled to launch on Monday from Kennedy Space Center, aiming to search for signs of extraterrestrial life on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. Previous studies suggest that beneath Europa's frozen surface lies a vast saltwater ocean, potentially capable of supporting life forms.

NASA's Europa Clipper mission, designed to be the agency's largest spacecraft for a planetary exploration effort, was initially set to launch earlier but faced delays due to Hurricane Milton, which impacted Florida on October 9-10. The spacecraft and the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket are currently secured in a SpaceX hangar near their launch site.

The mission is estimated to cost around .2 million. After liftoff, the spacecraft will fly by Mars in February 2025 and then Earth in December 2026, using the gravitational pull of these planets to gain speed. This method, known as "gravity assists," will allow Europa Clipper to reach Jupiter by April 2030, covering a distance of 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers).

The European Space Agency previously launched its Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission on April 14, 2023, to study Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons—Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. Juice is expected to arrive at Jupiter by July 2031.

Once at Jupiter, the Europa Clipper will conduct 49 close flybys of Europa, utilizing its nine scientific instruments to gather data on the moon's atmosphere, ice crust, and the ocean beneath it. The spacecraft is equipped with a nearly 10-foot-wide (3-meter) dish-shaped antenna and several smaller antennas that will transmit data back to Earth, a process that will take approximately 45 minutes while in orbit around Jupiter.

Although the Europa Clipper is not specifically a life...