New video series captures team working on NASA’s Europa Clipper

Destined for Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, the Europa Clipper spacecraft—the most important NASA has ever flown on an interplanetary mission—is being readied to launch in October 2024. Between at times, 1000’s of hours of labor will go into assembling and testing the spacecraft to make sure it is hardy sufficient to outlive a six-year 1.6-billion-mile (2.6 billion kilometer) journey and complex sufficient to carry out an in depth science investigation of this mysterious moon.

The brand new video sequence “Spacecraft Makers: Europa Clipper” gives fast updates on the mission’s progress and lifts the curtain on the exacting work that goes into ensuring the spacecraft reaches the Jupiter system in 2030. Europa Clipper goals to assist reply questions concerning the ocean that scientists strongly imagine lies beneath Europa’s icy crust.

The spacecraft will fly by the moon about 50 instances whereas orbiting Jupiter. (It may’t orbit Europa as a result of doing so would deliver Europa Clipper too near the gas giant’s brutal radiation belts. Study extra within the video.) On every flyby, a collection of science devices will collect knowledge on the depth of the subsurface ocean, the thickness of the ice crust, and, doubtlessly, the traits of any plumes that could be venting subsurface water into space. The aim is to seek out out whether or not Europa has the potential to assist life.

The sequence’ premiere episode options Europa Clipper Venture Supervisor Jordan Evans, who additionally has labored on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover and the company’s Hubble House Telescope. Within the video, he joins Deputy Science Supervisor Trina Ray, who labored on NASA’s Cassini and Galileo missions. They enterprise into JPL’s storied Excessive Bay 1 clear room, the place Europa Clipper is beneath building—and the place all of NASA’s Mars rovers, the dual Voyager spacecraft, and different historic spacecraft had been assembled.