NASA's Europa Clipper mission has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter to investigate if its moon Europa, with an enormous subsurface ocean, has conditions to support life.
As per its latest schedule, the spacecraft launched at 12:06 p.m. ET Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The largest spacecraft the U.S. space agency ever built for a mission headed to another planet, Europa Clipper also is the first NASA mission dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth.
The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles on a trajectory that will leverage the power of gravity assists, first to Mars in four months and then back to Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026. After it begins orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times, NASA said.
"NASA leads the world in exploration and discovery, and the Europa Clipper mission is no different. By exploring the unknown, Europa Clipper will help us better understand whether there is the potential for life not just within our solar system, but among the billions of moons and planets beyond our Sun," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
About an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket. Ground controllers received a signal soon after, and two-way communication was established with NASA's Deep Space Network facility in Australian capital Canberra. Mission teams celebrated as initial telemetry reports showed Europa Clipper is in good health and operating as expected.
"Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and Europa Clipper's scientific discoveries will build upon the legacy that our other missions exploring Jupiter -- including Juno, Galileo, and Voyager -- created in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet," said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa is about the size of the Moon, but its interior is different. Information from NASA's Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa's ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.
If the mission determines Europa is habitable, it may mean there are more habitable worlds in the solar system and beyond than imagined.
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