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What will Europa Clipper do? Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life. This animation shows NASA’s Europa Clipper during a flyby of Jupiter's moon Europa. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The mission’s three main science objectives are to understand the nature of the ice shell and the ocean beneath it, along with the moon’s composition and geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet. NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will perform dozens of close flybys of Jupiter’s moon Europa, gathering detailed measurements to investigate the moon. The spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter, will make nearly 50 flybys of Europa at closest-approach altitudes as low as 16 miles (25 kilometers) above the surface, soaring over a different location during each flyby to scan nearly the entire moon. Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life.

Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech Published: May 2, 2023 Join team members from NASA’s Europa Clipper mission behind the scenes in a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to learn about the design of this spacecraft that will visit Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter. Europa Clipper Project Manager Jordan Evans and Deputy Science Manager Trina Ray explain how scientists’ questions translate into hardware, and they provide an update on the build in JPL’s clean room, pointing out hardware that will connect the spacecraft to the rocket, the main communication antenna, and cameras. Spacecraft Makers is a video series that takes audiences behind the scenes to learn more about how space missions, like Europa Clipper, come together. Europa Clipper will explore this icy moon of Jupiter to see if there are conditions suitable for life. The spacecraft needs to be hardy enough to survive a 1.6-billion-mile, six-year journey to Jupiter – and sophisticated enough to perform a detailed science investigation of Europa once it arrives at the Jupiter system in 2030. Europa Clipper is expected to launch in October 2024 from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.