[ad_1]
“This is a very exciting time for the team, seeing the fruits of their labor orbiting Jupiter in a few years,” said Jordan Evans, deputy director of the Europa Clipper project, JPL. “Even in the face of COVID-19, the team is firing on all cylinders. Using workplace safety protocols, they do the necessary work on the equipment while the rest of the team does their work at home. “
A sophisticated suite
As this work progresses, project managers continue to plan the science of the mission. The spacecraft’s scientific instruments will measure the depth of the ice crust, measure the depth of the internal ocean and its thickness and salt, capture color images of the surface geology in detail, and analyze potential plumes.
Scientists are particularly interested in what makes up the surface of the moon. Evidence suggests that the materials on display there were mixed up through the icy crust and may have come from the ocean below. Europa Clipper will also study the moon’s gravity field, which will tell scientists more about how the moon flexes when Jupiter pulls on it and how this action could potentially heat the internal ocean.
“We are doing work that in a decade is going to change the way we think about the diversity of worlds in the outer solar system – and where life could exist now, not in the distant past,” said Europa Clipper Project JPL scientist Robert Pappalardo.
But the more instruments a spacecraft carries, the more they interact and potentially affect the functioning of the other. To that end, Pappalardo noted, “we are currently making sure that the instruments can all operate at the same time without electromagnetic interference.”
The full range of instruments will undergo extensive testing after arriving at JPL in 2021. The start of 2022 marks the start of assembly, testing and launch operations. The countdown begins.
“Less than a year before all of the hardware assemblies have to appear in one place,” Chodas said. “We put all of these parts together to start building the complete flight system, then test the fully integrated spacecraft and get it ready for launch.”
The team is on track to have Europa Clipper ready for a 2024 launch.
Learn more about the mission
Missions like Europa Clipper contribute to the field of astrobiology, interdisciplinary research into the variables and conditions of distant worlds that might harbor life as we know it. Although Europa Clipper is not a life-detecting mission, she will perform a detailed reconnaissance of Europa and examine whether the frozen moon, with its subterranean ocean, has the capacity to support life. Understanding the habitability of Europa will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential to find life beyond our planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL is leading the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with APL for the NASA Science Missions Directorate in Washington. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, performs program management for the Europa Clipper mission.
More information on Europa Clipper’s gear and instruments, including new photos, can be found here:
https://europa.nasa.gov/news/28/on-the-path-towards-unprecedented-science/
You can find more information about Europa and Europa Clipper here:
europa.nasa.gov
[ad_2]
Source link