NASA successfully launches the Europa Clipper, the largest planetary exploration spacecraft

Oct. 14 () –

The POT The mission was successfully launched this Monday Europa Clipperthe largest planetary exploration ship built to date, since the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The launch was scheduled for last Thursday, October 10, but it was postponed due to the arrival of Hurricane ‘Milton’. Finally, the launch took place this Monday at 12:06 p.m. in Florida (18:06 p.m. in Spain).

The largest space probe NASA has ever built to A planetary mission, Europa Clipper, a solar-powered robot, will carry out the first detailed investigations of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europe. The probe will orbit Jupiter and make nearly 50 flybys of Europa to determine if there are places beneath Europa’s surface that could support life.

Europa is one of the most promising places in our solar system to find an environment suitable for life beyond Earth.

Evidence suggests that the ocean beneath Europa’s icy surface could contain the ingredients for life: water, the right chemicals and energy.

Although Europa Clipper is not a life detection mission, it will answer key questions about the potential habitability of this moon of Jupiter.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located in Southern California and managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, is leading the development of the Europa Clipper mission in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel (Maryland), for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

The main body of the spacecraft was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA’s JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Mission Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is responsible for program management of the Europa Clipper mission..

NASA’s Launch Services Program, headquartered at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.