SpaceX launched NASA's Europa Clipper mission Monday, on a quest to find life on Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The $5 billion spacecraft emerged atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the NASA Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT. "Liftoff, @EuropaClipper!" NASA Administrator Bill Nelson posted on X.
"Today, we launch a new chapter in our exploration of the solar system in search of the ingredients of life on Jupiter's icy moon. Our next chapter in space exploration has begun," he said. For the first time, the NASA Europa Clipper mission will delve extensively into the science at Jupiter's moon Europa.
According to scientists, the Jovian moon Europa has a salty ocean under its icy crust, and hopefully, it can provide all the necessary ingredients required for life's sustenance. "The mission will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential for finding life beyond our planet," said the statement from NASA.
Though flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's operations centre reported a possible venting problem with the probe's propulsion system, later they said the system worked fine. Six hours after launch the spacecraft will unfold its solar arrays, which stretch more than 30 meters and tip the scales at nearly 6,000 kilograms. Jupiter is some 480 million miles from Earth on average.
This spacecraft will travel nearly 1.8 billion miles over more than five years to reach the Jovian system in April 2030. It will catch "gravity assists" of two other planets, Earth and Mars, to help speed it along its course to Jupiter. The main objectives for the mission include determining the nature of the ice shell and the ocean beneath it, as well as the composition and geology of the Moon. The spacecraft will make some 50 orbital passages of Jupiter and fly by Europa.
The results will tell the scientists a better understanding of astrobiological potential habitable worlds beyond our planet. The launch was the 11th of the entire mission for the Falcon Heavy and its second interplanetary mission. The launch marked the first time a Falcon Heavy was launched when the full expenditure of the three first-stage boosters was required.
Read also | Unlocking the Moon's Subsurface: New Study Reveals Abundant Ice Deposits
