On Oct. 14, NASA’s groundbreaking Europa Clipper mission launched from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Falcon Heavy’s 27 Merlin engines and single vacuum-optimized Merlin engine sent Europa Clipper on a trajectory out of the Earth-Moon system at a speed of approximately 35 km/s relative to the Sun.
Over a month and a half into its mission, Europa Clipper is around 20 million km from Earth. Following its separation from the Falcon Heavy upper stage and initial communications and health checks, teams began working to deploy Europa Clipper’s suite of instruments. Thus far, two instruments have been deployed and will stay deployed throughout the rest of the mission, as well as a number of spacecraft elements needed for operations in space.
While the 20 million km the spacecraft has traveled thus far may seem like quite the journey, by the time Europa Clipper reaches Jupiter, it will have traveled over 2.9 billion km throughout the solar system and have performed two flybys of Mars and Earth. Once at Jupiter, the spacecraft will execute 49 flybys of Europa to characterize and investigate the icy moon in extreme detail, potentially revealing a world that features the conditions needed for life.
Diagram of the Europa Clipper spacecraft and its instruments. (Credit: Caltech)
However, these critical science observations won’t begin until the spacecraft is at Jupiter. Currently, teams are receiving only engineering data from the spacecraft, which tells them the health of the spacecraft and how its various components are adjusting to space. Thus far, teams have confirmed that everything on the spacecraft is healthy and performing as expected.
The first major spacecraft component to be deployed was Europa Clipper’s massive solar arrays, which, when extended, span the length of a basketball court. The deployment of the solar arrays was a critical moment for the mission’s teams, as the spacecraft could not perform its mission without their power. Fortunately, the arrays fully deployed as expected and are producing power for the spacecraft.
After solar array deployment, the spacecraft’s magnetometer boom deployed. The boom extended from a small canister mounted on the side of the spacecraft bus and uncoiled to 8.5 m away from the spacecraft. Mission teams looked at the data from three sensors on the boom to confirm that it deployed as intended. These three sensors will be used to confirm the presence of a subsurface ocean at Europa and provide scientists with details on its depth, salinity, and other characteristics.
Next was the deployment of several antennas used by the spacecraft’s radar instrument. These four high-frequency antennas extended crosswise from the solar arrays, appearing as two long poles that each measure 17.6 m long. Additionally, eight very-high-frequency rectangular antennas were deployed, each measuring 2.76 m long. Two of these eight very-high-frequency antennas are located on the solar arrays.
“It’s an exciting time on the spacecraft, getting these key deployments done. Most of what the team is focusing on now is understanding the small, interesting things in the data that help them understand the behavior of the spacecraft on a deeper level. That’s really good to see,” said Europa Clipper project manager Jordan Evans of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.
With the magnetometer boom and radar instrument now deployed, seven instruments await deployment/commissioning by mission teams. These instruments will be repeatedly powered on and off throughout the next few weeks so that engineers can confirm their health and performance. Some of these instruments, such as the visible imager and gas and dust mass spectrometer, won’t be fully deployed for the next three years to protect their components from damage from the Sun as Europa Clipper travels through the inner solar system.
Once every instrument and spacecraft system has been checked out and confirmed healthy, teams will begin preparing for Europa Clipper’s first flyby — a flyby of Mars on March 1, 2025. The flyby will serve as a gravity assist maneuver, during which Europa Clipper will use Mars’ gravity to increase its velocity, which, in turn, increases its orbit’s furthest point from the Sun and brings its trajectory closer to Jupiter’s orbit.
In preparation for the flyby, teams have already had the spacecraft perform a single course correction maneuver to ensure Europa Clipper is on the correct trajectory to Mars. Once at Mars, mission scientists will use the flyby as an opportunity to confirm that their instruments are working as expected. Specifically, the thermal imager and radar instrument will be tested during this first flyby.
Europa Clipper’s Mars flyby is the first of two flybys the spacecraft will perform on its way to Jupiter. The spacecraft is set to perform a flyby of Earth in December 2026, during which its magnetometer instrument will measure Earth’s magnetic field.
(Lead image: Artist’s rendering of Europa Clipper at Europa. Credit: NASA)