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Europa Clipper's Thermal Tubing

April 1, 2021
Technicians and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory work together on Sept. 12, 2019, to bond thermal tubing to a panel built for NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Europa Clipper technicians and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California work together in a cleanroom on Sept. 12, 2019. They bond thermal tubing to the spacecraft's Radio Frequency (RF) panel, which was built by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. The tubing is part of a Heat Redistribution System (HRS) that pumps coolant all around the spacecraft and helps control its temperature as it travels through space.

With an internal global ocean twice the size of Earth's oceans combined, Europa may have the potential to harbor life. NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will swoop around Jupiter on an elliptical path, dipping close to the moon on each flyby to collect data. Understanding Europa's habitability will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential for finding life beyond our planet. Europa Clipper is aiming for a launch readiness date of 2024.

More information about Europa and Europa Clipper can be found here: europa.nasa.gov.

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