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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) to harness space technology for humanitarian assistance worldwide. The partnership will combine ESA's space expertise with ICRC's humanitarian reach to develop space-enabled solutions that can help protect and assist communities affected by disasters and conflicts across Europe and beyond.
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
During the Apollo program, when NASA sent humans to the Moon, those missions took several days to reach the Moon. The fastest of these was Apollo 8, which took just under three days to go from Earth orbit to orbit around the Moon.
Now it’s possible to save some fuel by flying different kinds of trajectories to the Moon that are shaped in such a way to save fuel. And those trajectories can take more time, potentially weeks or months, to reach the Moon, depending on how you do it.
Mars is further away, about 50 percent further away from the Sun than Earth is. And reaching Mars generally takes somewhere between seven to ten months, flying a relatively direct route.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission took about seven and a half months to reach Mars. And NASA’s MAVEN mission took about ten months to reach Mars.
Jupiter is about five times further away from the Sun than the Earth is. And so in order to make those missions practical, we have to find ways to reduce the fuel requirements. And the way we do that is by having the spacecraft do some flybys of Earth and or Venus to help shape the spacecraft’s trajectory and change the spacecraft’s speed without using fuel. And using that sort of approach, it takes between about five to six years to reach Jupiter.
So NASA’s Galileo mission, the first mission to Jupiter, took just a little over six years. And then NASA’s second mission to Jupiter, which was called Juno, took just under five years.
So to get to the Moon takes several days. To get to Mars takes seven to ten months. And getting to Jupiter takes between five and six years.
[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
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Last Updated Feb 19, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This version of a mosaic captured by the star tracker cameras aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper on Dec. 4, 2024, features the names of stars within view of the cameras. NASA/JPL-Caltech This mosaic of a star field was made from three images captured Dec. 4, 2024, by star tracker cameras aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft. Showing part of the constel-lation Corvus, it’s the first imagery of space the orbiter has captured since its launch on Oct. 14, 2024.NASA/JPL-Caltech The spacecraft’s star trackers help engineers orient the orbiter throughout its long journey to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.
Three months after its launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the agency’s Europa Clipper has another 1.6 billion miles (2.6 billion kilometers) to go before it reaches Jupiter’s orbit in 2030 to take close-up images of the icy moon Europa with science cameras.
Meanwhile, a set of cameras serving a different purpose is snapping photos in the space between Earth and Jupiter. Called star trackers, the two imagers look for stars and use them like a compass to help mission controllers know the exact orientation of the spacecraft — information critical for pointing telecommunications antennas toward Earth and sending data back and forth smoothly.
In early December, the pair of star trackers (formally known as the stellar reference units) captured and transmitted Europa Clipper’s first imagery of space. The picture, composed of three shots, shows tiny pinpricks of light from stars 150 to 300 light-years away. The starfield represents only about 0.1% of the full sky around the spacecraft, but by mapping the stars in just that small slice of sky, the orbiter is able to determine where it is pointed and orient itself correctly.
The starfield includes the four brightest stars — Gienah, Algorab, Kraz, and Alchiba — of the constellation Corvus, which is Latin for “crow,” a bird in Greek mythology that was associated with Apollo.
Engineers on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission work with the spacecraft’s star trackers in a clean room at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2022. Used for orienting the spacecraft, the star trackers are seen here with red covers to protect their lenses.NASA/JPL-Caltech Hardware Checkout
Besides being interesting to stargazers, the photos signal the successful checkout of the star trackers. The spacecraft checkout phase has been going on since Europa Clipper launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Oct. 14, 2024.
“The star trackers are engineering hardware and are always taking images, which are processed on board,” said Joanie Noonan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who leads the mission’s guidance, navigation and control operations. “We usually don’t downlink photos from the trackers, but we did in this case because it’s a really good way to make sure the hardware — including the cameras and their lenses — made it safely through launch.”
Pointing the spacecraft correctly is not about navigation, which is a separate operation. But orientation using the star trackers is critical for telecommunications as well as for the science operations of the mission. Engineers need to know where the science instruments are pointed. That includes the sophisticated Europa Imaging System (EIS), which will collect images that will help scientists map and examine the moon’s mysterious fractures, ridges, and valleys. For at least the next three years, EIS has its protective covers closed.
Europa Clipper carries nine science instruments, plus the telecommunications equipment that will be used for a gravity science investigation. During the mission’s 49 flybys of Europa, the suite will gather data that will tell scientists if the icy moon and its internal ocean have the conditions to harbor life.
The spacecraft already is 53 million miles (85 million kilometers) from Earth, zipping along at 17 miles per second (27 kilometers per second) relative to the Sun, and soon will fly by Mars. On March 1, engineers will steer the craft in a loop around the Red Planet, using its gravity to gain speed.
More About Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives 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.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL 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. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and 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, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
Find more information about Europa Clipper here:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper/
View an interactive 3D model of NASA’s Europa Clipper News Media Contacts
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2025-014
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Last Updated Feb 04, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Spots a Supernova
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a supernova in the constellation Gemini. ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. J. Foley (UC Santa Cruz) The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a supernova-hosting galaxy located about 600 million light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Hubble captured this image roughly two months after a supernova named SN 2022aajn was discovered. The supernova is visible as a blue dot at the center of the image, brightening the hazy body of the galaxy.
Other than the announcement of its discovery in November 2022, SN 2022aajn has never been the subject of published research. Why then would Hubble observe this supernova? SN 2022aajn is what’s known as a Type Ia supernova, which results from the explosion of the core of a dead star. Supernovae of this type help astronomers measure the distance to faraway galaxies. This is possible because Type Ia supernovae have the same intrinsic luminosity — no matter how bright they seem from Earth, they put out the same amount of light as other Type Ia supernovae. By comparing the observed brightness to the known intrinsic brightness, researchers can calculate the distance to the supernova and its host galaxy.
This seemingly simple way of measuring distances is complicated by cosmic dust. The farther away a supernova is, the fainter and redder it will appear — but intergalactic dust can make a supernova appear fainter and redder as well. To understand this complication, researchers will use Hubble to survey a total of 100 Type Ia supernovae in seven wavelength bands from ultraviolet to near-infrared. This image combines data taken at four infrared wavelengths. Infrared light passes through dust more easily than visible or ultraviolet light. By comparing the brightness of the sampled supernovae across different wavelengths, researchers can disentangle the effects of dust and distance, helping to improve measurements of galaxies billions of light-years away.
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Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated Jan 30, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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