Falcon Heavy: Europa Clipper mission has now a rocket ride!
One of the most important things that not only scientists but people, in general, want
to know is whether we are alone or not in the universe.
We actually know very few things about life as we know it and how it originated here on
Earth. Astronomers now are trying to figure out if
they can find some signs of life on another planet.
Also, they noticed that some moons could potentially support life as we know it.
That's why the study of the moons in our solar system has become important over the last
decades. One of the most promising ones is Jupiter's
moon Europa. That's why NASA programmed a dedicated mission,
called Europa Clipper. And Europa Clipper has now a rocket ride.
Follow me on this video to get to know more about what will be the main goals of the Europa
Clipper mission and how and when it will begin its journey to the Jovian moon.
When we talk about life as we know it, we don't have a satisfying theory to explain
how it formed, but we know for sure that it requires three things to thrive: a source
of energy like sunlight, a liquid solvent like water, and elements like carbon that
can form complex molecules known as organics. These are fundamentals ingredient that needs
to be present in order for a planet (or a moon) to support life.
Well, guess what? Jupiter's icy moon Europa may have all of
these things. Europa is just slightly smaller than Earth's
Moon and is covered with a shell of ice that is roughly 20 kilometres (12 miles) thick.
What's interesting about this ice shell is that beneath it lies a saltwater ocean up
to 150 kilometres (100 miles) deep, with more than twice the amount of water in Earth's
oceans. Salty, liquid water on Europa. Can you believe it?
Also, Jupiter offers a potential source of energy, because with its strong magnetic field
the planet traps high energy particles from the Sun, accelerating them into Europa's ice.
This, in theory, creates metabolism-driving molecules like hydrogen, ammonia and methane.
Starting from these elements, it should be clear that we need to study Europa closer.
That's what NASA wants to do starting from 2024.
Europa Clipper spacecraft will launch in 2024 on a mission to determine whether Europa can
support life. Its journey will take 6 years, arriving in
2030 on the Jovian moon. This will be the first dedicated mission to
explore a world besides Earth with a global ocean, known as an ocean world.
By determining whether Europa has the right conditions for life, Europa Clipper will help
us understand the prospects for life on other ocean worlds in our solar system and beyond.
Including its solar panels, Europa Clipper spans 22 meters (72 feet), longer than a basketball
court. The spacecraft is packed with a wide range of science instruments to scan Europa
from above and directly sample the moon's tenuous atmosphere.
Of course, if we want to send this spacecraft to Jupiter, we need a rocket ride.
And if you want to launch a 4.25 billion spacecraft, you want a sir rocket ride.
NASA's highly anticipated mission to Jupiter's ocean moon Europa now has one.
Europa Clipper will launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, NASA officials announced Friday
(July 23). The total value of the contract is about $178 million, they added.
As we can read on the SpaceX website, “Falcon Heavy is the most powerful operational
rocket in the world by a factor of two. With the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric
tons Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational
vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy. Falcon Heavy is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine
cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff,
equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft.”
Anyway, if all goes according to plan, (and of course we hope so!), Clipper will lift
off in October 2024 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
And, as programmed, it will arrive on Europa in April 2030.
What the probe will do is studying Europa in-depth during nearly 50 close flybys of
the moon over the course of about four Earth years, mission team members have said.
One of the most important things Clipper will do, among many other tasks, is to characterize
the ocean and ice shell and hunt for some safe places to land a life-hunting Europa
surface craft, which Congress has directed NASA to develop.
However, for now, the lander mission remains only a concept because it is not on NASA's
books yet and mostly because it does have no funding yet.
The announcement made some days ago, ends a lengthy launch limbo for the Europa Clipper
mission. In fact, Congress originally instructed NASA
to launch both Clipper and the future lander on the Space Launch System (SLS), the giant
rocket that the agency is building to launch people and probes to deep-space destinations.
Unfortunately, SLS had some troubles and its development has been plagued by delays and
cost overruns over the years. This is why the mega rocket still hasn't flown.
However, its first few missions will be those of the famous NASA Artemis Program for lunar
exploration, which aims to land people on the moon as early as 2024 and establish a
human presence there by the end of the decade. It has therefore been unclear when an SLS
would become available for Europa Clipper. But this past January, the Europa Clipper
team finally got the clarity it wanted, in the form of a memo from NASA's Planetary Missions
Program Office. Team members were instructed to stop planning
for a possible SLS launch: Clipper would ride to space on a commercial rocket. The
Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy. If you happen to visit the SpaceX website,
in the falcon heavy section, you will see that Falcon Heavy has flown three times to
date.
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Once abandoned the idea of sending Clipper abroad SLS, NASA knew that Clipper's ride
to Europa would have been more circuitous with a Falcon Heavy launch.
In fact, SLS would have sent Clipper on a direct-to-Jupiter trajectory, arriving at
the giant planet less than three years after liftoff.
The use of a commercial rocket instead of SLS will require Clipper to perform some boosting
flybys of Mars and Earth in February 2025 and December 2026, respectively, mission project
scientist Bob Pappalardo of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California said earlier
this year. Also, Europa Clipper will arrive on Jupiter
first and orbit it instead of Europa directly, spending the bulk of its time outside of the
planet's intense radiation field. The spacecraft will periodically dive through Jupiter's radiation,
fly by Europa for data collection, and then flee the scene.
This is a smart strategy that will allow Europa Clipper to study the moon for years rather
than days or months.
Before ending the video, here are some things that Europa Clipper mission will be capable
to do.
1) A radar instrument will map Europa's ice. 2) A magnetometer will determine the depth
and salinity of the ocean. 3) Color and infrared cameras will map the
surface in colour, searching for hot spots where the ocean may be seeping up through
the ice shell. 4) Spectrometers will determine the composition
of the surface and scan any plumes spouting water into space.
5) The spacecraft also has tools to directly sample Europa's atmosphere, including possible
ocean water and surface particles shot into space by Jupiter's radiation.
6) It will scout locations where future space missions might land. As anticipated, one mission
under consideration by NASA would spend a month on Europa's surface, feeding samples
into instruments designed to detect organic materials.
Last but not least, Europa Clipper will amaze us with new discoveries.
We just have to wait for the launch. Are you planning to watch it live in 2024?
We surely will.
"This video ends here! Thanks for watching everyone! What are your thoughts about this
video? Let us know in the comments below! And don't forget to share: everyone deserves
to know about the Europa Clipper mission! See you next time for another interesting
video.”