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NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Europa Clipper Mission – NASA's Europa Clipper
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
For more information about the Europa Clipper mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/europa

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New Video Series Captures Team Working on NASA's Europa Clipper – NASA's Europa Clipper
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NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for Earth’s first mission to conduct detailed investigations of Jupiter's moon Europa.

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REASON | Instruments – NASA's Europa Clipper
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The most complex and demanding segment of Europa Clipper's trajectory is the three years when it performs repeated flybys of Jupiter's moon Europa. 

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In an unprecedented year, the Europa Clipper project continues on the path toward unprecedented science. 

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NASA's Europa Clipper Builds Hardware, Moves Toward Assembly – NASA's Europa Clipper
“We’re doing work that a decade from now will change how we think about the diversity of worlds in the outer solar system – and about where life might be able to exist right now, not in the distant past,” said Europa Clipper Project Scientist Robert Pappalardo of JPL.
But the more instruments a spacecraft carries, the more they interact and potentially affect each other’s operation. To that end, noted Pappalardo, “We’re currently making sure the instruments can all operate at the same time without electromagnetic interference.”
The full suite of instruments will undergo extensive testing after they arrive at JPL in 2021. Early 2022 marks the start of assembly, test, and launch operations. The countdown is on.
“Less than a year to go until all the hardware assemblies need to show up in one place,” Chodas said. “We bring all these pieces together to start building up the full flight system, then test the fully integrated spacecraft and get it ready to launch.”
The team is on track to have Europa Clipper ready for a launch in 2024.
More About the Mission
Missions such as Europa Clipper help contribute to the field of astrobiology, the interdisciplinary research on the variables and conditions of distant worlds that could harbor life as we know it. While Europa Clipper is not a life-detection mission, it will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Europa and investigate whether the icy moon, with its subsurface ocean, has the capability to support life. Understanding Europa’s habitability will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential for finding life beyond our planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with APL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
More information about Europa Clipper’s hardware and instruments, including new photos, can be found here:
https://europa.nasa.gov/news/28/on-the-path-towards-unprecedented-science/
More information about Europa and Europa Clipper can be found here:
NASA's Europa Mission Begins with Selection of Science Instruments – NASA's Europa Clipper
NASA's Europa Mission Begins with Selection of Science Instruments – NASA's Europa Clipper

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| May 26, 2015

NASA's Europa Mission Begins with Selection of Science Instruments

This artist's rendering shows a concept for a future NASA mission to Europa in which a spacecraft would make multiple close flybys of the icy Jovian moon, thought to contain a global subsurface ocean. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA has selected nine science instruments for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, to investigate whether the mysterious icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.
NASA’s Galileo mission yielded strong evidence that Europa, about the size of Earth’s moon, has an ocean beneath a frozen crust of unknown thickness. If proven to exist, this global ocean could have more than twice as much water as Earth. With abundant salt water, a rocky sea floor, and the energy and chemistry provided by tidal heating, Europa could be the best place in the solar system to look for present day life beyond our home planet.
“Europa has tantalized us with its enigmatic icy surface and evidence of a vast ocean, following the amazing data from 11 flybys of the Galileo spacecraft over a decade ago and recent Hubble observations suggesting plumes of water shooting out from the moon," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “We’re excited about the potential of this new mission and these instruments to unravel the mysteries of Europa in our quest to find evidence of life beyond Earth.”
NASA’s fiscal year 2016 budget request includes $30 million to formulate a mission to Europa. The mission would send a solar-powered spacecraft into a long, looping orbit around the gas giant Jupiter to perform repeated close flybys of Europa over a three-year period. In total, the mission would perform 45 flybys at altitudes ranging from 16 miles to 1,700 miles (25 kilometers to 2,700 kilometers).
The payload of selected science instruments includes cameras and spectrometers to produce high-resolution images of Europa’s surface and determine its composition.
Overview | Mission – NASA's Europa Clipper
The spacecraft needs large solar arrays to collect enough light for its power needs as it operates in the Jupiter system, which is more than five times as far from the Sun as Earth. The spacecraft will be about 16 feet (5 meters) in height. With its arrays deployed, the spacecraft spans more than 100 feet (30.5 meters) and has a dry mass (no propellant in the tanks) of 7,145 pounds (3,241 kg).
Designed for Jupiter’s Tough Radiation Environment
Because Europa is bathed in radiation trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field, Europa Clipper's payload and other electronics will be enclosed in a thick-walled vault. This strategy of armoring up to go to Jupiter with a radiation vault was developed and successfully used for the first time by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The vault walls – made of titanium and aluminum – will act as a radiation shield against most of the high-energy atomic particles, dramatically slowing down degradation of the spacecraft's electronics.

Meet the spacecraft

View a 3D model of NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft and learn how it will conduct a detailed survey of Jupiter's moon Europa. The Europa Clipper spacecraft will determine whether there are places below Europa's surface that could support life.

View a 3D interactive model of Europa Clipper ›

Life Beyond EarthScience Investigations
Europa shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. Beyond Earth, Europa is considered one of the most promising places where we might find currently habitable environments in our solar system. Europa Clipper will determine whether there are places below Europa’s surface that could support life.
The spacecraft's payload will include cameras and spectrometers to produce high-resolution images and composition maps of Europa's surface and thin atmosphere, an ice-penetrating radar to search for subsurface water, and a magnetometer and gravity measurements to unlock clues about its ocean and deep interior. The spacecraft will also carry a thermal instrument to pinpoint locations of warmer ice and perhaps recent eruptions of water, and instruments to measure the composition of tiny particles in the moon's thin atmosphere and surrounding space environment.
Go farther: 
Learn about Europa Clipper’s science goals ›
View the mission timeline ›

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NASA will host a Science Chat at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT Monday, May 14), to discuss the latest analysis of Jupiter’s moon Europa and its status as one of the most promising places in the solar system to search for life.

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The Europa Clipper project team continues to grow as we move into more detailed design of the equipment, and it is gratifying to see such a geographically distributed team work well together. 

The Sextant: Europa Clipper Newsletter

This color-enhanced image of Jupiter and two of its largest moons – Io and Europa – was captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it performed its eighth flyby of the gas giant planet.

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Two veteran NASA missions are providing new details about icy, ocean-bearing moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

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NASA's upcoming mission to investigate the habitability of Jupiter's icy moon Europa now has a formal name: Europa Clipper.

NASA Mission Named 'Europa Clipper'

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U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón Meets NASA JPL Director Laurie Leshin

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U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón Visits Mission Control at NASA's JPL

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Meet Europa Clipper | Spacecraft – NASA's Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper will use sensors, cameras, and special hardware to determine and control its position in space. Europa Clipper’s two stellar reference units, informally called “star trackers,” are small cameras with a computer that carries a catalog of stars with known positions. 
As the cameras observes the starry sky, the computer matches the pattern of stars in the images to its star catalog and determines the spacecraft's orientation in space. Europa Clipper will also use four reaction wheels to stay pointed in the right direction. Unlike rovers roaming Mars - the wheels on this spacecraft won’t ever roll on the surface of a world. Instead, the two-foot-wide steel, aluminum, and titanium wheels will spin rapidly like gyroscopes, and help Europa Clipper perform thousands of turns, or “slews” as it orbits Jupiter. These “reaction wheels” are mounted at the bottom of the spacecraft’s main body. 
Thermal

Because Europa Clipper operates far from the Sun, the spacecraft must carefully conserve its own heat so that it does not freeze. However, during flybys of Europa, when all of Europa Clipper’s systems and instruments are turned on to gather and store scientific observations, the spacecraft could easily overheat. To manage these extremes, Europa Clipper carries pumps that circulate fluids through pipes to all the spacecraft’s sensitive electronics, carrying heat from hot spots to cold spots. Europa Clipper also has a radiator, which can be opened to shed heat, temperature sensors, heaters, and blanketing to help regulate the spacecraft’s temperature.

Europa News

The spacecraft arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 23, 2024, for launch preparations.

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Imagery from NASA's Juno spacecraft shows some intriguing features on the ice-encased Jovian moon.

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NASA Selects Students for Europa Clipper Intern Program
Assembly | Spacecraft – NASA's Europa Clipper
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NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will launch Oct. 10, 2024, on a mission to determine if Jupiter’s moon Europa could support life below its icy surface. When fully assembled, Europa Clipper will be as large as a passenger van, with solar arrays long enough to span a basketball court – more than 100 feet (30 meters). Nearly every detail of the spacecraft is being handcrafted to enable the acquisition of this unprecedented science.

All nine instruments and the telecommunications system have been added to Europa Clipper, which is in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. Technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are inspecting and cleaning the spacecraft's solar arrays, which were delivered to KSC in February 2024. Later this year, Europa Clipper will be sealed in a protective container and shipped from JPL to KSC. When it arrives in Florida, the solar arrays will be permanently attached to the spacecraft, then folded away for launch.
Days before launch, the spacecraft will be encapsulated in a protective payload fairing before its mated with the launch vehicle, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Here’s what you need to know about how Europa Clipper is coming together.

STEP 1

Hardware Development

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Hardware Development

Europa Clipper’s hardware is developed across the United States and Europe.

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Hardware Arrival

STEP 2

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Instruments and other spacecraft hardware arrive from across the country.

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Spacecraft Assembly

Now Europa Clipper begins to take shape.

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On the Path Towards Unprecedented Science – NASA's Europa Clipper
On the Path Towards Unprecedented Science – NASA's Europa Clipper

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April 1, 2021

On the Path Towards Unprecedented Science

Engineers test a prototype of one of Europa Clipper’s radar antennas in 2018 on a hilltop at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Credit: NASA/J. Thompson

In an unprecedented year, the Europa Clipper project continues on the path toward unprecedented science.
Four hundred years after its discovery by Galileo Galilei, the Jovian moon Europa is arguably the most exciting place to look for present day life in our solar system. Evidence from prior missions through the Jupiter system shows that Europa has over twice the amount of liquid water than Earth. Much of Europa’s water is in the form of a liquid, salty ocean. Europa’s tidal heating warms this ocean, and its rocky interior also likely supplies the ocean with minerals. The Europa Clipper mission will explore Europa to investigate its habitability — whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for present-day life.
Now only a few years from launch, Europa Clipper is taking shape in “shipyard” facilities across the country and overseas. Europa Clipper’s components are complex, custom-built devices. They are designed to withstand extremes in temperature, as well as Jupiter’s insidious radiation belt in which Europa orbits. The fabrication of the spacecraft components and scientific instruments is making good progress toward its future Earth departure. Here is a tour of these elements, along with depictions of the testing and checks required to ensure mission success.

Europa Clipper will have nine science instruments and several engineering subsystems. Shown here is an interactive rendering of the spacecraft. Fully deployed, the spacecraft will be more than 5 meters (15 feet) tall, 17 meters (50 feet) long, and will span about 30 meters (100 feet) in width — longer than a basketball court from tip to tip of its solar arrays. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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The solar panels and overall physical structure visible in the interactive model are aspects of spacecraft subsystems that comprise the flight system.