The $5 billion probe is currently located at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Pasadena, USA:
U.S. space scientists on Thursday unveiled NASA’s plans to launch an interplanetary probe to an icy moon of Jupiter as part of humanity’s search for extraterrestrial life.
The Clipper spacecraft will launch in October and will fly to Europa, one of dozens of moons orbiting the solar system’s largest planet and the closest point near our celestial body that might provide a habitat for life.
“One of the fundamental questions NASA wants to understand is, are we alone in the universe?” Bob Pappalardo, the mission’s project scientist, told AFP.
“If we were to find the conditions for life to exist and one day actually find life in a place like Europa, then that would mean that there are two examples of life in our own solar system: Earth and Europa.
“This has huge implications for understanding how common life is throughout the universe.”
The $5 billion probe is currently located in a “clean room” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California – a sealed area accessible only to those wearing head-to-toe coverings.
These precautions are to ensure that the probe is free from contamination that could bring Earth microorganisms to Europa.
After being transported to Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, the Clipper will blast off aboard a Space
In 2031, it should be in orbit around Jupiter and Europa, where it will begin detailed studies of the moon, which scientists believe is covered in frozen water.
“We have instruments like cameras, spectrometers, magnetometers and radars that can … penetrate right through the ice, bounce off the liquid water back to the surface and tell us how thick the ice is and where the liquid water is,” Pappalardo said.
Mission managers aren’t expecting to find little green men swimming in the water—in fact, they’re not even looking for life itself, just the conditions that could support it.
Scientists know from extreme environments on Earth—such as the light-starved geothermal vents deep in the polar ice caps—that tiny creatures can find their habitat almost anywhere.
Europa is nearly as large as the Moon and its conditions could provide similar habitats, which offers the tantalizing prospect that we’re not alone – even in our own solar system.
“If moons around planets far away from their stars can harbor life, then I think the number of opportunities around the solar system, around the universe, that life can harbor life will increase dramatically,” said Jordan Evans, the Europa Clipper mission.
challenge
The science won’t be easy – the powerful radiation fields around Europa could degrade the performance of these instruments, which would yield the equivalent of 100,000 chest X-rays for each orbit around the moon.
The vast distance means that when Clipper sends data back, it takes 45 minutes for the signal to reach mission control.
Even though the Clipper has a massive solar array that will deploy once in space, keeping the Clipper powered will be a major challenge, Evans said.
“Immediately after launch, (the solar panels) put out 23,000 watts … but when we got to Jupiter, which is so far away from the sun, they only put out 700 watts,” he said.
“Near Earth, they can power 20 houses continuously. When we’re on Jupiter, it’s just a few light bulbs and a few small appliances.”
The mission is scheduled to begin in the late 1990s and is expected to end around 2034, when the Clipper may have reached the end of its useful life.
The probe will then have one final port of call: Jupiter’s largest moon, said deputy project manager Tim Larson.
“After we complete our science mission, the way we end up is by crashing into one of the other objects in the Jupiter system to dispose of the spacecraft,” he said.
“The plan now is to enter Ganymede.”
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