Europa Clipper
NASA's Europa Clipper will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa and investigate whether the icy moon could have conditions suitable for life.
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Mission Statistics
Launch Date
October 2024
Type
OrbiterTarget
Europa, JupiterStatus
FutureAbout the mission
NASA's Europa Clipper will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa and investigate whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.
The mission will place a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter in order to perform a detailed investigation of Europa -- a world that shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust and which could host conditions favorable for life. The mission will send a highly capable, radiation-tolerant spacecraft into a long, looping orbit around Jupiter to perform repeated close flybys of the icy moon.
Instruments
- Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS)
- Europa Clipper Magnetometer
- Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE)
- Europa Imaging System (EIS)
- Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON)
- Europa THermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS)
- MAss SPectrometer for Planetary EXploration/Europa (MASPEX)
- Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph
- SUrface Dust Mass Analyzer (SUDA)