Europa Clipper, launched on 14 October 2024, is the largest planetary spacecraft NASA has built. It is on its way to Jupiter, where it will arrive in 2030, after borrowing speed from Mars in 2025 and from the Earth. Its target is Europa, a moon slightly smaller than ours whose icy crust hides a salty ocean with perhaps twice as much water as all the Earth’s oceans. Rather than orbiting Europa, which sits in Jupiter’s fierce radiation, Clipper will orbit Jupiter and fly past Europa about fifty times, mapping its ice and checking whether that ocean could host life.
Where is Europa Clipper now?
Computing…
About Europa Clipper
- Agency
- NASA
- Launched
- 2024-10-14
- Status
- Cruise
Goals
Europa Clipper is designed to find out whether Jupiter's moon Europa has conditions suitable for life. Beneath its icy shell lies a salty ocean that may hold more than twice as much water as all of Earth's oceans. During 49 close flybys, its nine instruments and a gravity experiment will study the ice shell, the ocean, the moon's composition and its geology.
Today
Mars flyby 2025-03-01. The Earth flyby (~3,200 km) also allows the only post-launch absolute magnetometer calibration. 49 Europa flybys planned.
Questions and answers
Why does Europa Clipper fly past the Earth?
A gravity assist: passing close to a planet changes a probe’s speed and direction without fuel, which shortens the trip to Jupiter.
Will it land on Europa?
No. It will study Europa from flybys, some as low as 25 km above the surface.
Where the numbers come from
Values refresh every second in your browser; the published data are checked every 10 minutes and updated several times a day.