NASA set to launch mission to Jupiter's moon Europa in search of signs of life

Marking the latest foray into abstraction exploration, NASA is preparing to motorboat its archetypal ngo to research Jupiter's moon, Europa, to find if it harbors conditions suitable to enactment life.

NASA's Europa Clipper is acceptable to motorboat connected Oct. 10 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center successful Florida and volition beryllium carried into orbit connected SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, according to the agency.

The bureau volition put astir $5.2 cardinal successful the full beingness of the mission, which spans astir 2 decades, opening successful 2015 and ending successful 2034, according to a property merchandise from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This representation provided by NASA, processed by Kevin M. Gill, shows Jupiter's satellite Europa captured by the Juno spacecraft connected Sept. 29, 2022.

Kevin M. Gill/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI via AP, File

Europa is the 4th largest of Jupiter's 95 moons, and planetary scientists judge this unsocial satellite harbors a salty water beneath its icy crust.

NASA says the ngo aims to reply the question: Does the global, subsurface water incorporate the integrated compounds and vigor sources indispensable to prolong life?

"As an water world, Europa is precise intriguing," Gina DiBraccio, manager of NASA's planetary subject division, said during a property briefing this month.

"This ngo is going to assistance america to recognize a analyzable portion of our star system," DiBraccio added.

NASA's 100-foot-long and astir 58-foot-wide Clipper probe is the largest spacecraft the bureau has built for a planetary ngo and volition question 1.8 cardinal miles to Europa.

The sizeable spacecraft was built with ample star arrays to cod capable airy for its powerfulness needs arsenic it operates successful the Jupiter system, according to the agency.

The travel to Europa is long, with the formation determination spanning astir 5 and a fractional years. NASA says the spacecraft volition occurrence its engines to participate orbit astir Jupiter successful April 2030.

Once there, the spacecraft volition behaviour astir 50 flybys of the satellite astatine "closest-approach altitudes" arsenic debased arsenic 16 miles supra the aboveground to stitchery elaborate measurements of the planet's environment, according to NASA.

Throughout the mission, the spacecraft indispensable alert done 1 of the "most punishing radiation environments successful our star strategy -- 2nd lone to the Sun's," according to NASA.

The crushed the situation is truthful challenging is that Jupiter is surrounded by a magnetic tract that is 20,000 times stronger than Earth's.

When the tract spins, NASA reports, "it captures and accelerates charged particles, creating radiation that tin harm the spacecraft."

Because of this, the Europa Clipper is designed to shield delicate electronics from radiation, and NASA researchers designed the spacecraft's orbits to bounds vulnerability to the astir radiation-heavy areas astir Jupiter.

If successful, the bureau reports the ngo volition extremity successful June 2034.