NASA’s European Clipper, the largest spacecraft the agency has ever developed for a planetary mission, is already 20 million kilometers (13 million miles) from Earth.
An artist’s concept for NASA’s Europa Clipper shows the spacecraft silhouetted on the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, with the magnetometer boom fully deployed on top and the antenna for the radar instrument pointing out from the solar array. It’s growing. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Europa Clipper launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 14, 2024.
The spacecraft is hurtling toward the Sun at 35 kilometers per second (22 miles per second).
Europa Clipper will travel 2.9 billion kilometers (1.8 billion miles) to reach Jupiter in 2030 and begin a series of 49 flybys in 2031, collecting data using an array of instruments. , will tell scientists whether the icy moon and its interior ocean influenced the icy moons. Conditions necessary for life to exist.
For now, the information mission teams are receiving from the spacecraft is strictly engineering data, telling them how the hardware is working.
Immediately after launch, Europa Clipper deployed a giant solar array extending the length of a basketball court.
Next on the list was the magnetometer boom, which unwound from a canister attached to the spacecraft body and stretched 8.5 meters (28 feet) in length.
To ensure that all boom deployments went well, the team used data from three magnetometer sensors.
Once the spacecraft reaches Jupiter, these sensors will measure Europa’s surrounding magnetic field, confirming the existence of an ocean believed to lie beneath the moon’s icy crust, and telling scientists about its depth and salinity. I’ll let you know.
After the magnetometer, the spacecraft deployed several antennas for radar instruments.
Four high-frequency antennas extend laterally from the solar array, forming what appear to be two long poles, each 17.6 m (57.7 ft) long.
Eight rectangular very high frequency antennas, each 2.76 m (9 ft) long, were also deployed, two on each of the two solar arrays.
“This is an exciting time for the spacecraft to complete these important deployments,” said Jordan Evans, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and project manager for Europa Clipper.
“Most of what the team is focused on right now is understanding the small, interesting things in the data that help us understand the behavior of the spacecraft on a deeper level. It’s really good to see that. That’s it.”
The remaining seven devices will be powered on and off throughout December and January so engineers can check their health.
Some instruments, including visible imagers and gas and dust mass spectrometers, will remain under protective covers for the next three years or so to prevent potential damage from the Sun while Europa Clipper was in the inner solar system. I plan to make it.
Once all equipment and engineering subsystems are checked out, the mission team will shift its focus to Mars.
On March 1, 2025, Europa Clipper will reach Mars’ orbit and begin orbiting Mars, using Mars’ gravity to gain speed.
The mission navigator has already completed one course correction maneuver to keep the spacecraft on the correct course as planned.
On Mars, as a test run, the rover’s thermal imager will be turned on to take multicolor images of Mars.
They also plan to collect data on the radar equipment so engineers can verify that it is working as expected.
The spacecraft is scheduled to perform another gravity assist in December 2026 and swoop down to Earth before making the remainder of its long journey to the Jupiter system.
At that time, the magnetometer measures the Earth’s magnetic field and calibrates the instrument.
Source: www.sci.news
