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NASA has high hopes for Jupiter’s moon, Europa, and the US space agency just marked the i’s and t’s on the spacecraft that will fly there to see if it can actually support life. Europa Clipper faces a long journey, with Jupiter orbiting the Sun on an elliptical path much farther than Earth, but what she could find there may be worth it.
This is because unlike what we have seen from other planets and moons in the solar system, Europa is showing signs of being very conducive to sustaining life. There is twice as much liquid water there as on Earth, for example, mostly in the form of a huge salty ocean. It is warmed by the heating of the tides and should be filled with minerals from the rocky construction of the moon.
In short, as potential places where life could develop or even prosper, Europe could be a relative haven on our doorstep, astronomically speaking anyway. Project Europa Clipper is how NASA plans to find out, with the agency confirming that the spacecraft has now completed its critical design review. This is the process by which the complete design – including everything from propulsion and scientific instruments to the complex radiological shielding that will be required – is assessed before the final spacecraft is approved for construction to begin. .
This conception is not simple. Europe may have a lot of water, but it also occupies a particularly treacherous part of the space. Radiation levels are high and surface temperatures are low; this means that Europa Clipper must be both strong enough to survive these conditions, but also carry instruments sensitive enough to get the data that NASA and its scientists need.
The plan is, at first glance, simple. Once at Jupiter, Europa Clipper will circle the planet on an elliptical path, grazing near the moon each time to take measurements. “The science includes collecting measurements of the internal ocean, mapping the surface composition and geology, and looking for plumes of water vapor that might escape from the icy crust,” explains the NASA.
Although the final design has only been approved now, the construction of many of the individual components that go into the spacecraft has already been underway for some time. That’s because NASA has already given the green light to some subsystems and instruments, like the nearly 10-foot-wide high-gain antenna. This is the large dish that will be used to communicate with Earth and return the data collected by Europa Clipper.
Likewise, the solar wings – 100 feet long and covering 960 square feet of solar panel area – are already under construction. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, is working on the propulsion module, with its 16 rocket motors, and everything will be assembled at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. There, the computer hardware, as well as the armored vault that scientists hope will protect this hardware and other components from radiation, are being built.
There will be a number of different tools on board. Thermal imaging sensors will measure surface temperatures, signs of hot ice and surface roughness; NASA hopes to use it to develop a future lander for Europa. A magnetometer will examine the direction, strength and time varying nature of magnetic fields around the moon, in addition to measuring the depth and composition of the European ocean.
The Europa imaging system is made up of two visible light cameras – one wide-angle, one narrow-angle – to get high-resolution shots of the surface. With a resolution of around 20 inches, they will be able to spot evidence of recent or even current geological activity. An ultraviolet spectrograph will do the same for UV light, while the map imaging spectrometer will collect infrared light and will be used to pinpoint the distribution of ice, salts and organic matter.
A mass spectrometer will collect the gases around the moon and determine their composition, while a plasma instrument will track things such as the thickness of the ice shell, the depth of the ocean, and the salinity of the ocean. . Instruments for measuring surface dust dispersed in the nearby space – and potentially water and other particles – will also be on board. Finally, there will be a radar system that can penetrate up to 18 miles in the ice, to try to figure out what might be below the surface.
Ironically, in addition to making sure that Jupiter’s radiation is not an issue, the Europa Clipper team must also ensure that the instruments they are carrying do not conflict either. “We are currently making sure that the instruments can all operate at the same time without electromagnetic interference,” says Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper project scientist at JPL.
By the end of 2021, all components – from instruments to solar panels and rockets – are due to arrive at JPL. From 2022, the challenge will be to put them together like a huge and very expensive puzzle. The launch is expected to take place sometime in 2024.
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