KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.—The launch window for probably the most costly robotic area missions in NASA’s historical past opens one yr from Tuesday. Coming in at $5 billion, Europa Clipper will attempt to assist scientists reply a daring query commensurate with its eye-popping value: Are there locations beneath the floor of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that might help life?
Europa is barely smaller than Earth’s Moon, and is considerably extra attention-grabbing to scientists trying to find life. The icy world harbors an unlimited international ocean of liquid water beneath a frozen crust. Clipper will sail previous Europa almost 50 occasions, coming as shut as 16 miles (25 kilometers) from its icy floor to interrogate the moon with a complicated suite of 9 devices.
Jordan Evans, who leads the staff growing Europa Clipper at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, advised Ars on Tuesday the mission is on monitor to depart for Jupiter throughout a 21-day planetary launch window opening on October 10, 2024.
The engineers who map out intricate interplanetary trajectories have even decided precisely when Europa Clipper must launch. If it flies on the primary day of the launch window, liftoff will happen at 11:51 am EDT, based on Evans. That might be barely adjusted as navigators refine the mission’s trajectory.
“It’s a 6,000-kilogram [13,000-pound] spacecraft with 100-foot [30-meter] wingspan photo voltaic arrays, with delicate radar devices on them, the place all devices should function concurrently,” Evans mentioned. “So it’s a beast.”
Evans spoke with Ars on Tuesday on the Kennedy House Heart, Europa Clipper’s launch website, nearly precisely one yr, to the minute, earlier than the mission’s focused liftoff time. Evans is on the website this week, familiarizing himself with SpaceX’s operations as the corporate readies for the launch of a Falcon Heavy with NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission.
“Clipper is doing nice,” Evans mentioned, whereas acknowledging the mission has gone via its share of struggles.
Managers needed to overcome staffing points at JPL, which developed Europa Clipper in parallel with at the very least 4 different main missions. Then, a political battle was waged over which rocket would ship Clipper into the Photo voltaic System. NASA officers lastly dominated out launching Clipper on the House Launch System after engineers found the spacecraft might be broken by vibrations induced by the rocket’s solid-fueled boosters.
In 2021, NASA chosen SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy for the job. The choice saved an estimated $2 billion, and a few novel trajectory design allowed Europa Clipper to take a extra direct route towards Jupiter than initially thought potential with a launch on a business rocket. Which means Clipper will enter orbit round Jupiter in 2030.
The pandemic additionally threw a wrench into the mission. Supply dates slipped for a few of Clipper’s science devices as they encountered technical snags. However Evans mentioned Tuesday that technicians assembling Clipper at JPL not too long ago put in the ultimate parts wanted for the spacecraft to begin a remaining spherical of assessments earlier than cargo from the California lab to the launch website in Florida subsequent Might.
These remaining additions included all however one of many mission’s science devices, a collection of cameras, spectrometers, and magnetometers to picture Europa and measure the detailed composition of its icy shell. Clipper’s electronics vault, an armored field to protect computer systems from the damaging radiation at Jupiter, was additionally not too long ago put in on the principle physique of the spacecraft, together with a high-gain communications antenna to transmit knowledge again to Earth.
“At launch minus one yr, we’ve taken the flight automobile via all of its paces,” Evans mentioned. “We’ve simulated launch, we’ve simulated trajectory correction maneuvers, Jupiter orbit insertion, and flybys of Europa with all of the devices working on the flight {hardware} and software program. The system carried out nice.”
Testing on faucet
Later this month, Clipper’s floor staff at JPL will transfer the spacecraft right into a take a look at chamber to blast it with sound, mimicking the acoustic surroundings it must face up to throughout launch. They will even put Clipper via vibration and shock testing to see how the craft responds to the shaking of a rocket flight.
Then comes an electromagnetic compatibility take a look at, a milestone to make sure all the electronics aboard Clipper can function collectively as designed. Across the finish of the yr, engineers will switch the spacecraft right into a thermal vacuum chamber to topic it to the intense cold and hot temperature swings it can see in area.
Among the assessments nonetheless to return for Clipper shall be simulations to test the spacecraft’s response to issues. Can the spacecraft detect, diagnose, and shield itself towards the glitches that might crop up throughout its mission?
“From right here on out, it’s all system-level testing to make sure that any flaws that acquired into that automobile—as a result of it’s the work of human palms—that we will discover them and proper them, if obligatory, earlier than we get to launch one yr from in the present day,” Evans mentioned.
After transporting the spacecraft throughout the nation to Florida, Clipper’s engineers will set up the spacecraft’s European-built photo voltaic arrays. Antennas for the mission’s radar instrument shall be mounted on the deployable photo voltaic panels. This radar package deal will measure the thickness of Europa’s international ice sheet, and examine the interior construction of the icy crust, maybe discovering pockets of liquid water that join the floor with the ocean beneath.
The radar is likely one of the devices that units Clipper other than NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, which gathered a lot of the knowledge we learn about Europa throughout its mission at Jupiter greater than 20 years in the past. Mission managers determined to put in the photo voltaic panels and radar antennas on the launch website, relatively than at JPL, as a hedge towards delays in delivering these parts.
“There are at all times schedule dangers,” Evans mentioned. “The staff is aware of we’ve acquired quite a bit nonetheless forward of us, however we undoubtedly have ample schedule margin (for launch subsequent October).”