NASA Launch Manager Gives ‘Go’ for Launch

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket prepares for launch at Launch Pad 39A on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket prepares for launch at Launch Pad 39A on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Image credit: NASA+

NASA Launch Manager Tim Dunn has just given NASA’s Europa Clipper mission a “go” for launch! Mission and launch managers are counting down to the launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This will be NASA’s second interplanetary mission for SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, following launch of NASA’s Psyche mission exactly a year ago yesterday. Europa Clipper is reusing the side boosters from NASA’s Psyche mission for this launch.

Because Europa Clipper needs a lot of energy to start it on its interplanetary trajectory to Jupiter, the rocket for this launch will be fully expendable, with the exception of a recoverable fairing. This means that there will be no return of first-stage boosters for this launch. Although SpaceX has flown a fully expendable Falcon Heavy before, this is the first time that NASA’s Launch Services Program is launching a mission for the agency with this Falcon Heavy configuration, though the program has extensive experience now with both expendable as well as reusable rockets. In addition to not recovering any boosters, technicians removed components only needed for reuse to increase the performance of the rocket, to launch the largest planetary spacecraft NASA has ever developed and give it the power it needs to travel to Jupiter.

Launch is in less two minutes!

Weather Remains Favorable

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket stands at Launch Pad 39A on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket stands at Launch Pad 39A on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. Photo credit: NASA+

We are about 10 minutes from launch and the weather outlook for NASA’s Europa Clipper launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida remains outstanding. Weather officials the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station predict a 95% chance of favorable conditions for liftoff of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission.

‘In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa’

The lower half of Europa Clipper’s vault plate, showing the poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón (lower right), a drawing representing the Jovian system that will host the names of 2.6 million people flying with mission on a microchip (top right), a tribute to planetary scientist Ron Greeley (bottom left), and the radio emission lines known a the ‘Water Hole’ (center).
The lower half of Europa Clipper’s vault plate, showing the poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón (lower right), a drawing representing the Jovian system that will host the names of 2.6 million people flying with mission on a microchip (top right), a tribute to planetary scientist Ron Greeley (bottom left), and the radio emission lines known a the ‘Water Hole’ (center). Image credit: NASA

Along with the science instruments and hardware needed for NASA’s Europa Clipper’s long journey to the Jovian system, the spacecraft also continues the long legacy of NASA spacecraft carrying inspirational messages from Earth, including the Pioneer Plaque, the Voyager Golden Record, and engravings carried aboard NASA’s Mars rovers.

The original poem “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” written by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, is engraved on Europa Clipper’s vault plate in her own handwriting. The poem connects the two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored.

Limón, Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress since 2022, wrote the poem as part of her laureateship and debuted it on June 1, 2023, to kick off the NASA Message in a Bottle campaign, which invited people around the world to sign their names to the poem.

Over 2.6 million people submitted their names to be stenciled on a microchip that will travel to Europa alongside the poem. The campaign was a special collaboration, uniting art and science, by NASA, the U.S. Poet Laureate, and the Library of Congress.

Limón’s poem and the names of more than 2.6 million participants etched onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft will soon travel together on Europa Clipper’s 1.8-billion-mile voyage to the Jupiter system.

Second Stage Fueling Started

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket stands at Launch Pad 39A on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket stands at Launch Pad 39A on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. Photo credit: NASA+

SpaceX confirms that fueling for the second stage of the Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the Europa Clipper spacecraft is underway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.Comprising three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores, the 27 Merlin engines of the Falcon Heavy combine to generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately 18,747 aircraft.

Merlin engines — originally designed for recovery and reuse — use RP-1 and liquid oxygen as rocket propellants in a gas-generator power cycle.

Falcon Heavy utilizes the same second stage and same payload fairings as flown on Falcon 9.

In about 10 minutes, engine chill will begin on the rocket in preparation for launch, followed by the rocket and spacecraft transitioning to internal power. This will be NASA’s Launch Services Program tenth mission using a SpaceX rocket.

NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission: By the Numbers

In the leadup to launch, technicians encapsulated NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft inside SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy payload fairing in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In the leadup to launch, technicians encapsulated NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft inside SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy payload fairing in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: SpaceX

As NASA’s largest planetary spacecraft heads to the solar system’s largest planet to study one of its moons, let’s take a closer look inside the numbers of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission.

  • 9 — The spacecraft carries nine science instruments and a gravity experiment that uses the telecommunications system. All the science instruments will operate simultaneously on every flyby, and scientists will then layer the data together to paint a full picture of Europa.
  • 24 — The Europa Clipper spacecraft has 24 engines.
  • 90 — Europa’s diameter is about 90% that of Earth’s Moon, with an equatorial diameter of 1,940 miles (3,122 kilometers).
  • 100 — The spacecraft extends 100 feet (30.5 meters) from one end to the other and about 58 feet (17.6 meters) across. That’s about the size of a basketball court, thanks in large part to the solar arrays, which need to be huge so they can collect enough sunlight while near Jupiter to power the instruments, electronics, and other subsystems.
  • 105 — Europa Clipper is NASA’s Launch Services Program 105th end-to-end mission.
  • 1610 — Galileo Galilei found Europa, along with Jovian moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Io, with his homemade telescope in January 1610.
  • 2030 — Mission planners are sending Europa Clipper past Mars and then Earth, using the planets’ gravity as a slingshot to add speed to the spacecraft’s trek. After journeying about 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) over 5 1/2 years, the spacecraft will fire its engines to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030.
  • 4,000 — Since the mission was officially approved in 2015, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper, including teams who work for contractors and subcontractors. Currently, about a thousand people work on the mission, including more than 220 scientists from both the U.S. and Europe.
  • 13,000 — At the time of launch, Europa Clipper will weigh approximately 13,000 pounds (6,000 kilograms) with nearly 6,000 pounds (2,750 kilograms) of propellant.
  • 20,000 — Jupiter is surrounded by a gigantic magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s. As the field spins, it captures and accelerates charged particles, creating radiation that can damage spacecraft. Mission engineers designed a spacecraft vault to shield sensitive electronics from radiation, and they plotted orbits that will limit the time Europa Clipper spends in most radiation-heavy areas around Jupiter.
  • 2,600,000 — As part of a mission campaign called “Message in a Bottle,” the spacecraft is carrying a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, cosigned by millions of people from nearly every country in the world. Their names have been stenciled onto a microchip attached to a tantalum metal plate that seals the spacecraft’s electronics vault. Along with the poem and microchip, the plate features waveforms of people saying the word “water” in over 100 spoken languages.
  • 1,800,000,000 — NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Europa.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy in Florida in just under 40 minutes.

First Stage Fueling Started

Europa Clipper spacecraft at Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
A reflection in the water shows NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft atop SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket at Launch Pad 39A on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. Photo credit: SpaceX

Moments ago, mission teams polled “go” to begin fueling the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

The Falcon Heavy is a two-stage rocket with a central core and two side boosters that uses RP-1 (a refined kerosene) and liquid oxygen (LOX) to fuel its 27 Merlin engines, which combine to generate 5 million pounds of thrust. Loading of the RP-1 and LOX is now underway.

These two side boosters previously launched one year ago on NASA’s mission to explore the Psyche asteroid, Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. Europa Clipper will be the third Falcon Heavy mission for NASA’s Launch Services Program.

NASA Begins Live Broadcast of Europa Clipper Mission

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket stands at Launch Pad 39A on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. The spacecraft will complete nearly 50 flybys of Europa to determine if there are conditions suitable for life beyond Earth. Europa Clipper’s launch period opens at 12:06 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 14, from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket stands at Launch Pad 39A on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. The spacecraft will complete nearly 50 flybys of Europa to determine if there are conditions suitable for life beyond Earth. Photo credit: SpaceXNASA just ramped up its coverage of today’s Europa Clipper launch, as the live broadcast with commentary has now begun, and you can watch coverage on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media. Watch NASA launch coverage in Spanish on NASA+ and NASA’s Spanish YouTube channel.

The three main science objectives of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. This multidisciplinary field investigates the extremes of life on Earth to inform its search for life in the universe. It encompasses characterizing habitable environments in preparation to search for life.

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will perform nearly 50 close flybys of Jupiter’s moon Europa, gathering detailed measurements to investigate the moon. The spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter, will make approach altitudes as low as 16 miles (25 kilometers) above the surface, soaring over a different location during each flyby to scan nearly the entire moon.

You can also follow along on the launch blog, which originates from the NASA News Center here at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a few miles from Launch Complex 39A in Florida. There’s more to come, so stay with us.

Join the conversation, follow the launch, and get Europa Clipper mission updates from these accounts:

X: @EuropaClipper, @NASA, @NASAJPL, @NASA_LSP, @NASASolarSystem, @NASASCaN, @NASAKennedy
Facebook: NASAEuropaClipper, NASA, NASAJPL, NASA LSP, NASASolarSystem, NASASCaN
Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASAJPL, @nasasolarsystem

NASA’s Europa Clipper Science Instruments

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter.
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter. Image credit: NASA

The nine science instruments on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft are the most advanced and sensitive that have ever been sent the outer solar system:

  • Europa Imaging System (EIS) is a wide-angle camera and a narrow-angle camera, each with an eight-megapixel sensor, that will produce high-resolution color and stereoscopic images of Europa. They will study geologic activity, measure surface elevations, and provide context for other instruments.
  • Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS) is a thermal imager that uses infrared light to distinguish warmer regions on Europa where liquid water may be near the surface or might have erupted onto the surface. It will also measure surface texture to understand the small-scale properties of the surface.
  • Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS) will help determine the composition of Europa’s atmospheric gases and surface materials by collecting spectra and images with an ultraviolet telescope. It will also search near Europa for signs of plume activity.
  • Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE) is the mission’s infrared spectrometer that will map the composition and distribution of ices, salts, organics, and the warmest hotspots on Europa. The maps will help scientists understand the moon’s geologic history and determine if Europa’s suspected ocean is suitable for life.
  • Europa Clipper Magnetometer (ECM) will study Europa’s magnetic field and aims to confirm that Europa’s ocean exists, measure its depth and salinity, and measure the moon’s ice-shell thickness. It will also study Europa’s ionized atmosphere and how it interacts with Jupiter and its magnetic field.
  • Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS) will separate distortions due to charged particles from Europa’s induced magnetic field, which carries information about Europa’s ocean. Europa’s ionosphere and plasma trapped in Jupiter’s magnetic field distort magnetic fields near Europa.
  • Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON) is an ice-penetrating radar that will probe Europa’s icy shell for reflections from the moon’s suspected ocean and study the ice’s structure and thickness. It will also study the moon’s surface topography, composition, and roughness.
  • Mass Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration/Europa (MASPEX) will analyze gases — both in Europa’s faint atmosphere and in possible plumes. It will study the chemistry of the moon’s suspected subsurface ocean, how ocean and surface exchange material, and how radiation alters compounds on the moon’s surface.
  • Surface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) will identify the chemistry of material emitted from Europa’s surface by tiny meteorite impacts. A subsurface ocean or reservoirs might also vent material into space as plumes and offer clues to Europa’s ocean salinity.
  • Gravity/Radio Science equipment will measure how Europa’s shape and its gravity field change as the moon’s non-circular orbit carries it closer, then farther, from Jupiter. These measurements at various points in the moon’s orbit will show how Europa flexes and help reveal its internal structure.

Some of the instrument sensors are installed on the nadir deck, which enables simultaneous observations of Europa’s surface during flybys, while the two instruments designed to capture gas and dust face in the direction of spacecraft motion. Radar antennas are mounted directly onto the spacecraft’s solar arrays. The spacecraft’s magnetometer is on a boom that extends from the spacecraft, reducing obstructions and magnetic interference from the spacecraft. PIMS has four detectors, two placed on the upper part of the spacecraft and two on the lower part. The instruments’ electronics are installed in a vault to protect them from radiation.

Meet NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft

This artist's concept depicts NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft silhouetted against Jupiter as it passes over the gas giant's icy moon Europa (bottom center). Scheduled to orbit Jupiter beginning in April 2030, the mission will be the first to specifically target Europa for detailed science investigation.
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft silhouetted against Jupiter as it passes over the gas giant’s icy moon Europa (bottom center). Scheduled to orbit Jupiter beginning in April 2030, the mission will be the first to specifically target Europa for detailed science investigation. Image credit: NASA

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is the largest the agency has ever built for a planetary mission. Data from previous NASA missions has provided scientists with strong evidence that an enormous salty ocean lies underneath the frozen surface of Europa. Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter and make nearly 50 flybys of Europa to determine the thickness of the Europa’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize the moon’s geology to help scientists better understand the potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

Europa Clipper Spacecraft Facts

  • With its solar arrays, or “wings,” deployed, Europa Clipper spans more than 100 feet (about 30 meters) — about the length of a basketball court. The huge arrays are needed to collect sunlight to power the spacecraft while it operates at Jupiter, which is more than five times as far from the Sun as Earth is.
  • The spacecraft has 24 rocket engines.
  • The spacecraft has nine dedicated science instruments, plus a gravity and radio science investigation.
  • At launch, Europa Clipper will weigh approximately 13,000 pounds (6,000 kilograms).
  • During processing, teams loaded 6,067 pounds (2,752 kilograms) of propellant into the spacecraft.
  • Europa Clipper’s propulsion module is an aluminum cylinder 10 feet (3 meters) long and 5 feet wide. It holds the spacecraft’s 24 engines, fuel tanks, as well as the spacecraft’s helium pressurant tanks.
  • Europa Clipper’s electronics are enclosed in a vault with walls made of 1/3-inch-thick (9.2-mm) sheets of aluminum-zinc alloy to protect the electronics from Jupiter’s intense radiation. These electronics include computers (or the “brains” of the spacecraft), flight software, and more.
  • The vault plate, made of tantalum metal about 1 millimeter thick and about 7 by 11 inches (18 by 28 centimeters), is part of the structure that will protect Europa Clipper’s electronics from Jupiter’s harmful radiation. It is engraved with poetry, artwork, and other messages that pay tribute to the connection between Europa’s ocean world and our own. It also carries a dime-size microchip stenciled with more than 2.6 million names submitted by the public.
  • Europa Clipper’s 10-foot-diameter (3-meter-diameter) high-gain antenna and other smaller radio antennas will be used to receive commands from Earth through NASA’s Deep Space Network, send data back to engineers and scientists and will be used for gravity and radio science investigations.
  • Europa Clipper will use inertial sensors, star cameras, and special hardware to determine and control its position in space.
  • Europa Clipper carries pumps that circulate fluids through pipes to all the spacecraft’s sensitive electronics, carrying heat from hot spots to cold spots. Europa Clipper also has temperature sensors, heaters, blanketing, and a radiator with louvers that can be opened to shed heat to help regulate the spacecraft’s temperature.
  • Instructions on how to build paper, toy brick, and 3D-printed models of the Europa Clipper spacecraft can be found on NASA’s website.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California led the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Key Milestones for Today’s Europa Clipper Launch

Europa Clipper spacecraft with SpaceX Falcon Heavy
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket stands at Launch Pad 39A on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. Photo credit: SpaceX

We’re a little under two hours away from today’s launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Here’s a closer look at some of today’s important countdown and ascent milestones (all times are approximate):

Time                 Events
– 00:53:00      Launch Director verifies go for propellant load
– 00:50:00      1st stage RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene) loading begins
– 00:45:00      1st stage LOX (liquid oxygen) loading begins
– 00:35:00      2nd stage RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene) loading begins
– 00:18:30      2nd stage LOX loading begins
– 00:07:00      Falcon Heavy begins engine chill
– 00:00:59      Flight computer commanded to begin final prelaunch checks
– 00:00:45      Launch Director verifies go for launch
– 00:00:20      Propellant tanks pressurize for flight
– 00:00:06      Engine controller commands engine ignition sequence to start
00:00:00         Falcon Heavy liftoff
00:01:07          Max Q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket)
00:03:03          Side boosters engine cutoff (BECO)
00:03:07          Side boosters separate
00:04:02         1st stage main engine cutoff (MECO)
00:04:06         1st and 2nd stages separate
00:04:13          2nd stage engine starts (SES)
00:04:31          Fairing deployment
00:07:53          2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO-1)
00:47:40         2nd stage engine starts (SES-2)
00:50:56         2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO-2)
01:02:12           Europa Clipper deploys