What will the Europa Clipper do?

A NASA spacecraft rocketed away Monday on a quest to explore Jupiter’s tantalizing moon Europa and reveal whether its vast hidden ocean might hold the keys to life.

It will take Europa Clipper 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter, where it will slip into orbit around the giant gas planet and sneak close to Europa during dozens of radiation-drenched flybys.

Scientists are almost certain a deep, global ocean exists beneath Europa’s icy crust. And where there is water, there could be life, making the moon one of the most promising places out there to hunt for it.

Europa Clipper won’t look for life; it has no life detectors. Instead, the spacecraft will zero in on the ingredients necessary to sustain life, searching for organic compounds and other clues as it peers beneath the ice for suitable conditions.

“Ocean worlds like Europa are not only unique because they might be habitable, but they might be habitable today,” NASA’s Gina DiBraccio said on the eve of launch.

SpaceX started Clipper on its 1.8 million-mile (3 billion-kilometer) journey, launching the spacecraft on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

The $5.2 billion mission almost got derailed by transistors.

NASA didn’t learn until spring that Clipper’s transistors might be more vulnerable to Jupiter’s intense radiation field than anticipated. Clipper will endure the equivalent of several million chest X-rays during each of the 49 Europa flybys. The space agency spent months reviewing everything before concluding in September that the mission could proceed as planned.

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Hurricane Milton added to the anxiety, delaying the launch by several days.

About the size of a basketball court with its solar wings unfurled, Clipper will swing past Mars and then Earth on its way to Jupiter for gravity assists. The nearly 13,000-pound (5,700-kilogram) probe should reach the solar system’s biggest planet in 2030.

Clipper will circle Jupiter every 21 days. One of those days will bring it close to Europa, among 95 known moons at Jupiter and close to our own moon in size.

The spacecraft will skim as low as 16 miles (25 kilometers) above Europa — much closer than the few previous visitors. Onboard radar will attempt to penetrate the moon’s ice sheet, believed to be 10 miles to 15 miles or more (15 kilometers to 24 kilometers) thick. The ocean below could be 80 miles (120 kilometers) or more deep.

The spacecraft holds nine instruments, with its sensitive electronics stored in a vault with dense zinc and aluminum walls for protection against radiation. Exploration will last until 2034.

If conditions are found to be favorable for life at Europa, then that opens up the possibility of life at other ocean worlds in our solar system and beyond, according to scientists. With an underground ocean and geysers, Saturn’s moon Enceladus is another top candidate.

&copy 2024 The Canadian Press

SpaceX has shared some dramatic close-up pictures of the 70-meter-tall Super Heavy booster at the start and finish of its historic test flight on Sunday, after which the rocket was brought safely back to Earth for the first time.

The photos show the Super Heavy’s Raptor engines lighted up during the launch at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, as the vehicle launched on its fifth test flight, and also as it came in to land — secured by giant mechanical arms on the launchpad — about seven minutes after launch.

Launching and returning the world's most powerful rocket pic.twitter.com/E8AWRc5TTZ

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024

Super Heavy, powered by Raptor pic.twitter.com/Eg7dO4M64t

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024

SpaceX described the fifth test flight of the Starship — comprising the first-stage Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship spacecraft — as its “most ambitious” to date “as we work to demonstrate techniques fundamental to Starship and Super Heavy’s fully and rapidly reusable design.”

Here’s a video of the remarkable moment when mechanical arms secured the enormous booster as it returned to Earth:

Thousands of distinct vehicle and pad criteria had to be met prior to catching the Super Heavy booster. Thanks to the tireless work of SpaceX engineers, we succeeded with catch on our first attempt. pic.twitter.com/6wa5v6xHI0

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024

In a post on its website, SpaceX said: “Following a successful liftoff, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and coast, the Super Heavy booster performed its landing burn and was caught by the chopstick arms of the launch and catch tower at Starbase. Thousands of distinct vehicle and pad criteria had to be met prior to the catch attempt, and thanks to the tireless work of SpaceX engineers, we succeeded with catch on our first attempt.”

Earlier Starship test flights culminated in the booster either exploding in midair or being dumped in the sea.

While the booster got all the attention on Sunday due its astonishing homecoming, the Starship spacecraft enjoyed a successful flight, too, executing a hot-staging separation from the Super Heavy and igniting its six Raptor engines to carry it into orbit.

“It coasted along its planned trajectory to the other side of the planet before executing a controlled reentry, passing through the phases of peak heating and maximum aerodynamic pressure, before executing a flip, landing burn, and splashdown at its target area in the Indian Ocean,” SpaceX said, adding that the flight test concluded 1 hour and 5 minutes after launch when the spacecraft splashed down in the ocean.

“The entire SpaceX team should take pride in the engineering feat they just accomplished,” the Elon Musk-led spaceflight company said. “The world witnessed what the future will look like when Starship starts carrying crew and cargo to destinations on Earth, the moon, Mars, and beyond.”

In an earlier interview, Musk explained how SpaceX hoped to bring the Super Heavy booster home.

“This is a custom-built tower with arms that are designed to catch the largest flying and heaviest flying object ever made and pluck it outta the air,” the billionaire entrepreneur said. “So you got a couple hundred tons plummeting at more than half the speed of sound. So this thing is still coming in really fast. When the engines land … it’s gonna drop the velocity to basically zero and come in between the arms.”

“The arms will be wide, and as it’s coming in, the arms will close, go flush against the side of the vehicle, and the vehicle will be descending through the arms.”

Many observers thought that the first landing attempt would probably end in failure, so it was a very special moment as the booster settled in between the mechanical arms on the very first try.