NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft: Solar Panels Installed | Kennedy Space Center

NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft: Solar Panels Installed | Kennedy Space Center

 

Technicians move NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to accommodate installation of its five-panel solar array at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. After moving the spacecraft, the team had to precisely align the spacecraft in preparation for the installation. The huge arrays—spanning more than 100 feet when fully deployed, or about the length of a basketball court—will collect sunlight to power the spacecraft as it flies multiple times around Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, conducting science investigations to determine its potential to support life.

    

Technicians move NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to accommodate installation of its five-panel solar array at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. After moving the spacecraft, the team had to precisely align the spacecraft in preparation for the installation. The huge arrays—spanning more than 100 feet when fully deployed, or about the length of a basketball court—will collect sunlight to power the spacecraft as it flies multiple times around Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, conducting science investigations to determine its potential to support life. 

Slated to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket later this year from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy, Europa Clipper will help determine if conditions exist below the surface Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, Europa that could support life.

Europa Clipper is expected to reach the Jupiter system in April 2030, and it will accomplish a few milestones along the way, including a Mars flyby in February 2025 that will help propel the spacecraft toward Jupiter’s moon through a Mars-Earth gravity assist trajectory.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

The spacecraft was designed to withstand the pummeling of radiation from Jupiter and gather the measurements needed to investigate Europa’s surface, interior, and space environment.

Europa Clipper has nine dedicated science instruments, including cameras, spectrometers, a magnetometer, and an ice-penetrating radar. These instruments will study Europa’s icy shell, the ocean beneath, and the composition of the gases in the moon’s atmosphere and surface geology, and provide insights into the moon’s potential habitability. The spacecraft also will carry a thermal instrument to pinpoint locations of warmer ice and any possible eruptions of water vapor. Strong evidence shows the ocean beneath Europa’s crust is twice the volume of all the Earth’s oceans combined.

The Europa Clipper mission demonstrates NASA’s commitment to exploring our solar system and searching for habitability beyond Earth. The data will contribute to our understanding of the Jovian system and will help pave the way for potential future missions to study Europa and other potentially habitable worlds.

For more information on the mission, visit: https://europa.nasa.gov/

Image Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Image Date: Aug. 1, 2024

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