Mark Megahan
That exclusive colony on one of Jupiter’s moons is a big step closer, now that NASA started the assembly phase on Europa Clipper. The craft will sail the spaceways out to Jupiter, blasting off in 2030.
Europa Clipper under construction
As part of the $4.5 billion project, since 2016 NASA’s been designing and building 10 custom instrument modules. The clipper is being cobbled together in California at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, then SpaceX will get the package up to orbit from Florida on the Falcon Heavy in 2024.
All that heavy duty lifting from the “most powerful operational rocket today” is required because the unit “carries more instruments than most interplanetary missions.” Once it gets to Europa, it will be one really busy robot.
Robert Pappalardo is the scientist in charge of the entire Europa Clipper project, which is eventually supposed to be about the size of an SUV.
The plan is to map Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon in high def detail. That particular moon has all the signs that it could support life. Not on the surface but deep in its oceans.
“It has a complement of 10 highly capable instruments with the overall goal of understanding the potential habitability of Europa,” Pappalardo verifies. That gives the clipper “the largest number of instruments and coordinated investigations of any mission going to the outer solar system.”
Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubric would be proud of the “discovery” voyage to the unknown orbiting Jupiter.
Evidence of liquid water
The Hubble Space Telescope has grabbed a few snapshots which show spectacular eruptions of molten water fountaining into icy sculptures above the surface of Europa.
That gives solid clues that there is liquid dihydrogen monoxide under the surface ice which “may be heated by Jupiter’s extreme gravity.”
So far, none of the equipment we shot off to Jupiter has the ability to look under the crust to see if there really is water under there.
“The Europa Clipper’s sophisticated instrument suite is specifically designed” to probe the moon’s watery interior. It will then evaluate the composition and “provide information on its geology and level of current activity.”
Astronomers are hoping that the Europa Clipper probe will find a good spot to send a landing craft in a future mission. One of those could drill into the ice and probe it a lot more deeply.
“If we were to find an especially interesting location, with evidence for near-surface water, evidence of recent heat or plumes, and perhaps organic materials — then that would be the kind of oasis that we would want to target.“
