Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA time-lapse shows Jupiter-bound spacecraft getting prepped

Trevor Mogg
By

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California has taken delivery of a major piece of the Europa Clipper spacecraft ahead of its highly anticipated mission to Jupiter’s icy Europa moon in 2024.

JPL this week shared a time-lapse video (below) showing the main body of the Europa Clipper arriving at its facility from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which designed the spacecraft’s body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Recommended Videos

One step closer to investigating the icy world Europa. ❄️

The main body of @NASA’s @EuropaClipper spacecraft has been delivered to JPL from @JHUAPL. It is undergoing final assembly and testing ahead of its planned 2024 launch to Jupiter’s icy moon. https://t.co/NpOsDbQl2Q pic.twitter.com/LYpgJ6BUSm

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) June 7, 2022

Commenting on the arrival of the component, Jordan Evans, the mission’s project manager at JPL, said: “It’s an exciting time for the whole project team and a huge milestone. This delivery brings us one step closer to launch and the Europa Clipper science investigation.”

The spacecraft is now undergoing final assembly and testing ahead of a space mission that will seek to learn more about Europa and find out if the liquid water that’s believed to exist beneath its icy crust has the potential to harbor life.

The Europa Clipper’s body — comprising an aluminum cylinder holding electronics, radios, thermal loop tubing, cabling, and the propulsion system — stands at 10 feet (3 meters) tall and 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide.

JPL says that with its solar arrays and other deployable equipment packed away for launch, the spacecraft will be “as large as an SUV.” However, once fully deployed, the spacecraft’s solar arrays will extend to the size of a basketball court, making it the largest NASA spacecraft ever built for a planetary mission.

Upon reaching its destination, the Europa Clipper will perform nearly 50 flybys of Jupiter’s Europa moon, which scientists believe contains an internal ocean holding twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans.

Nine science instruments aboard the spacecraft will work to collect data on Europa’s atmosphere, surface, and interior, in the hope of providing scientists with enough information to determine if some form of life could exist in the water beneath the ice.

NASA plans to launch the Europa Clipper on a triple-booster SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket that’s only been used three times to date. The spacecraft will begin its explorations when it reaches the faraway location in 2030.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
NASA’s Mars rover makes ‘one small drop for humankind’
The first Mars rock sample left at a collection site by NASA's Perseverance rover.

NASA has taken a significant step forward in getting Mars samples back to Earth after its Perseverance rover deposited its first rock-filled tube on the martian surface for possible collection by a later mission.

Perseverance, which has been gathering samples from Mars since arriving there in February 2021, deposited the sample on Wednesday, December 21.

Read more
NASA’s Juno spacecraft to investigate Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io
NASA’s Juno mission captured this infrared view of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io on July 5, 2022, when the spacecraft was about 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) away. This infrared image was derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard Juno. In this image, the brighter the color the higher the temperature recorded by JIRAM.

NASA's Juno spacecraft is famous for the beautiful images of Jupiter it regularly captures using its JunoCam instrument, and its research into Jupiter's strange atmosphere. But recently the spacecraft has also been investigating Jupiter's moon, like the icy Europa or the largest moon in our solar system, Ganymede.

Now, Juno will begin an investigation of the intriguing volcanic moon Io. The spacecraft is set to perform a series of nine flybys of Io beginning on December 15, coming within 930 miles of the moon's surface.

Read more
NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashes down after journey around moon
At 12:40 p.m. EST, Dec. 11, 2022, NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a 25.5 day mission to the Moon. Orion will be recovered by NASA’s Landing and Recovery team, U.S. Navy and Department of Defense partners aboard the USS Portland ship.

NASA's Orion spacecraft has splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, marking the end of the Artemis I mission around the moon. The spacecraft entered the ocean off the California coast at 12:40 p.m. ET (9:40 a.m. PT) on Sunday, December 11.

The Orion spacecraft and the rocket that launched it, the Space Launch System, have now completed this first uncrewed test flight ahead of future crewed missions which will take astronauts around the moon on Artemis II, and to the lunar surface on Artemis III. The flight lasted 25 days and saw Orion travel more than 1.4 million miles into a distant orbit around the moon, performing two close flybys on the way out and on the return journey.

Read more