Successful launch for the probe Europa Clipper from NASA: Monday October 14, 2024 at 6.06pm Italians launched the largest probe ever built for an interplanetary mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with destination Jupiter, where it will arrive in 2030 after a 2.9 billion km journey to study its moon Jupiter Europeone of the most promising places to look for life in the Solar System. Europa, like Jupiter’s other icy moons, is thought to possess a vast underground global ocean of salted water with conditions suitable for sustaining life. Europa Clipper is the first mission expressly dedicated to the study of an “oceanic” world beyond Earth.
The American mission was launched by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocketwhich placed the probe on one interplanetary trajectory. which, thanks to two gravitational slingshots from Mars and Earth, will lead Europa Clipper to reach the Jovian system in 2030. Here the probe will perform well 49 close flybys of the surface of Europa, studying it with his 9 on-board instrumentstrying to understand whether Europa’s underground ocean – larger than all those on Earth combined – is truly habitable.
How the launch of the Europa Clipper mission went
Europa Clipper took off at 18:06 Italian on 14 October 2024 from Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The launch was initially scheduled for October 10, but was postponed due to the passage of Hurricane Milton in Florida. Given its interplanetary nature, the probe needed a launcher capable of bringing it to an escape velocity sufficient to escape the Earth’s gravitational field. The choice fell on SpaceX’s Falcon HeavyElon Musk’s company recently protagonist of the first reuse of the Starship rocket booster.
The 27 powerful Merlin engines of the rocket’s first stage were active for about 4 minutes, when separation from the second stage occurred. 5 minutes after liftoff, the nose cone of the rocket opened revealing the Europa Clipper probe. The second stage continued to push the probe into space, placing it on a interplanetary trajectory about 58 minutes after liftoff, when the probe separated from the rocket. At that point the ground team established communication with the probe, amid cheers from mission control. Subsequently the probe also successfully deployed its gigantic solar panels, 30 meters long.
This was the first Falcon Heavy launch that required thefull use of all three boosters of the first stage of the vehicle. So much so that there is not enough fuel left to re-enter the first stage in a controlled manner, as SpaceX has been accustomed to for years.
You can watch the launch of the probe live from NASA below:
Scientific objectives of the mission to Jupiter’s moon
THE’main objective of the Europa Clipper mission is to determine whether Europa has the right conditions to support life. Europa, as large as the Moon, is in fact among the most promising places of the Solar System where to find signs of life other than terrestrial life. This is a suspicion that astronomers have known since the 1990s thanks to observations conducted by the Galileo probe which showed strong indications that under the frozen crust of Europe hides a vast ocean of salt watercontaining more water than all that contained in the Earth’s oceans. Furthermore, in 2012 they were observed plumes of water emanating from the surface of Europa, a sign of both underlying water and geological activity.
In order to answer the main question of the mission, three scientific objectives must be completed: determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, study Europa’s composition, and characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential of the moons of our Solar System.
pw It is worth specifying, as done by NASA scientists, that Europa Clipper he will not directly seek life on Europa, but only the potential of the environment beneath its surface to support life. What scientists therefore look for are the organic chemical compounds precursors of life. To actively search for life beneath Europa’s surface would require a lander to land on the icy crust of the Jovian moon and closely study the ocean below. Initially the mission also included a lander, but subsequent budget constraints forced NASA to give up this segment of the mission. Europa Clipper will still identify the best landing spots for a future mission hunting for life in the ocean below. A mind-boggling mission that the American Congress has already asked NASA to develop.
Mission details: arrival date and timing
Europa Clipper’s mission has one duration expected exactly 10 years. The probe will take well 6 years Alone to reach Jupiter, in the’April 2030covering well in total 2.9 billion km. Reaching Jupiter directly would require an extremely high amount of fuel, which is why the second one will exploit the gravitational slingshot of Mars and Earth. It is an orbital maneuver that uses the gravitational field of a celestial body to accelerate a probe without or with minimal fuel consumption. Europa Clipper will carry out a first gravitational slingshot with Mars in February 2025 and one second with the Earth a December 2026.

Once it arrives in the Jovian system, the probe will perform some orbital insertion maneuvers which will burn approximately 60% of the on-board fuel. The maneuvers will place the probe in aelliptical orbit around Jupiter (not around Europa given the intense radiation present around the moon). Europe will be studied thanks to 49 fly-bythat is to say close flybys of the surface of the frozen moon. Overflights will bring Europa Clipper closer to suns 25km from the surface of Europa.
The mission is scheduled to end September 2034when NASA will crash Europa Clipper on Ganymedeanother of Jupiter’s Galilean moons. Scientists chose Ganymede because it was believed not very suitable for hosting life. A crash on Europa could have contaminate with terrestrial microbial life a potentially habitable place.
How the probe is made: the characteristics
The Europa Clipper probe is the largest probe built by NASA for a mission to another planet. The probe is equipped with largest solar panels ever built by NASA for an interplanetary mission, wide well 30 meters. This was necessary given the low intensity of solar radiation reaching Jupiter. The probe with all the solar panels weighs quite a bit 6 tons!

The probe fits on board well 9 scientific instrumentsincluding a radar capable of observing beneath the satellite’s icy crust, spectrometers and instruments to characterize Europa’s magnetic environment, optical photographic cameras and thermal instruments for detecting ice patches where there have been recent water eruptions underground.