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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
For Anum Ashraf, Ph.D., the interconnectedness of NASA’s workforce presents the exciting opportunity to collaborate with a multitude of people and teams. With more than 11 years at the agency, Ashraf has played a fundamental role in leading efforts that actively bridge these connections and support NASA’s mission.
Ashraf serves as the mission commitment lead for NASA’s SCaN (Space Communication and Navigation) Program, which is managed through the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate. SCaN provides communications and navigation services that are essential to the operation of NASA’s spaceflight missions, including enabling the success of more than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions through the Near Space Network and Deep Space Network. Whether she is supporting missions involving astronauts in space or near-Earth missions monitoring the health of our planet, Ashraf ensures that critical data is efficiently transferred between groups.
Near Space Network antennas at the White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, New Mexico.NASA
“I am the ‘front door’ for all missions that are requesting space communication through the SCaN program,” said Ashraf. “My job is to understand the mission requirements and pair them with the right assets to enable successful back and forth communication throughout their mission life cycle.”
Prior to her current role, Ashraf served as the principal investigator for the DEMETER (DEMonstrating the Emerging Technology for measuring the Earth’s Radiation) project at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. DEMETER is the next-generation observational platform for measuring Earth’s radiation. Leading a team of engineers and scientists across NASA’s multifaceted organizations, Ashraf helped develop an innovative solution that will allow future researchers to assess important climate trends affecting the planet.
Outside of work, Ashraf finds a creative outlet through hobbies like knitting, cross stitching, and playing piano. She brings her ambitious, passionate, and authentic qualities to caring for her two children, who are also her daily source of inspiration.
“Inspiration is a two-way street for me; my kids inspire me to be my best, and, in turn, I inspire them,” said Ashraf. “My kids love telling their friends that we are a NASA family.”
Anum Ashraf, Ph.D., mission commitment lead for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation Program
Looking toward the future, Ashraf is excited to see a collaboration between NASA, industry, academia, and international space enthusiasts working together towards a common goal of space exploration. As a devoted and collaborative leader, Ashraf will continue to play an important role in advancing the agency’s missions of space research and exploration.
NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate maintains a continuous human presence in space for the benefit of people on Earth. The programs within the directorate are the hub of NASA’s space exploration efforts, enabling Artemis, commercial space, science, and other agency missions through communication, launch services, research capabilities, and crew support.
To learn more about NASA’s Space Operation Mission Directorate, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/space-operations
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Last Updated Mar 27, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
The innovative team of engineers and scientists from NASA, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and more than 40 other partner organizations across the country that created the Parker Solar Probe mission has been awarded the 2024 Robert J. Collier Trophy by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA). This annual award recognizes the most exceptional achievement in aeronautics and astronautics in America with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles in the previous year.
“Congratulations to the entire Parker Solar Probe team for this well-earned recognition,” said NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro. “This mission’s trailblazing research is rewriting the textbooks on solar science by going to a place no human-made object has ever been and advancing NASA’s efforts to better understand our solar system and the Sun’s influence, with lasting benefits for us all. As the first to touch the Sun and fastest human-made object ever built, Parker Solar Probe is a testament to human ingenuity and discovery.”
An artist’s concept of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. NASA On Dec. 24, 2024, Parker Solar Probe made its closest approach to the Sun, passing deep within the Sun’s corona, just 3.8 million miles above the Sun’s surface and at a top speed of close to 430,000 mph, ushering in a new era of scientific discovery and space exploration.
“This award is a recognition of the unrelenting dedication and hard work of the Parker Solar Probe team. I am so proud of this team and honored to have been a part of it,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By studying the Sun closer than ever before, we continue to advance our understanding of not only our closest star, but also stars across our universe. Parker Solar Probe’s historic close approaches to the Sun are a testament to the incredible engineering that made this record-breaking journey possible.”
Three novel aerospace technology advancements were critical to enabling this record performance: The first is the Thermal Protection System, or heat shield, that protects the spacecraft and is built to withstand brutal temperatures as high as 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The Thermal Protection System allows Parker’s electronics and instruments to operate close to room temperature.
Additional Parker innovations included first-of-their-kind actively cooled solar arrays that protect themselves from overexposure to intense solar energy while powering the spacecraft, and a fully autonomous spacecraft system that can manage its own flight behavior, orientation, and configuration for months at a time. Parker has relied upon all of these vital technologies every day since its launch almost seven years ago, in August 2018.
“I am thrilled for the Parker Solar Probe team on receiving this well-deserved award,” said Joe Westlake, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “The new information about the Sun made available through this mission will improve our ability to prepare for space weather events across the solar system, as well as better understand the very star that makes life possible for us on Earth.”
Parker’s close-up observations of solar events, such as coronal mass ejections and solar particle events, are critical to advancing our understanding of the science of our Sun and the phenomena that drive high-energy space weather events that pose risks to satellites, air travel, astronauts, and even power grids on Earth. Understanding the fundamental physics behind events which drive space weather will enable more reliable predictions and lower astronaut exposure to hazardous radiation during future deep space missions to the Moon and Mars.
“This amazing team brought to life an incredibly difficult space science mission that had been studied, and determined to be impossible, for more than 60 years. They did so by solving numerous long-standing technology challenges and dramatically advancing our nation’s spaceflight capabilities,” said APL Director Ralph Semmel. “The Collier Trophy is well-earned recognition for this phenomenal group of innovators from NASA, APL, and our industry and research partners from across the nation.”
First awarded in 1911, the Robert J. Collier Trophy winner is selected by a group of aviation leaders chosen by the NAA. The Collier Trophy is housed in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
“Traveling three times closer to the Sun and seven times faster than any spacecraft before, Parker’s technology innovations enabled humanity to reach inside the Sun’s atmosphere for the first time,” said Bobby Braun, head of APL’s Space Exploration Sector. “We are all immensely proud that the Parker Solar Probe team will join a long legacy of prestigious aerospace endeavors that redefined technology and changed history.”
“The Parker Solar Probe team’s achievement in earning the 2024 Collier is a shining example of determination, genius, and teamwork,” said NAA President and CEO Amy Spowart. “It’s a distinct honor for the NAA to acknowledge and celebrate the remarkable team that turned the impossible into reality.”
Parker Solar Probe was developed as part of NASA’s Living With a Star program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The Living With a Star program is managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Applied Physics Laboratory designed, built, and operates the spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA.
By Geoff Brown
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
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Last Updated Mar 25, 2025 Editor Sarah Frazier Contact Abbey Interrante abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
As part of NASA’s Artemis campaign, the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, managed out of Johnson Space Center in Houston, is paving the way for conducting lunar science for the benefit of humanity.
Through CLPS, NASA teams worked closely with commercial companies to develop a new model for space exploration, enabling a sustainable return to the Moon. These commercial missions deliver NASA science and technology to the lunar surface, providing insights into the environment and demonstrating new technologies that will support future astronauts—on the Moon and, eventually, on Mars.
Carrying a suite of NASA science and technology, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully landed at 3:34 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 2, 2025, near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.Firefly Aerospace Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 captured an image March 6, 2025, after landing in a crater from the Moon’s South Pole. The lunar lander is on its side about 820 feet from the intended landing site, Mons Mouton. In the center of the image between the two lander legs is the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1 suite, which shows the drill deployed.Credit: Intuitive Machines 2025: A Year of Lunar Firsts
This year has already seen historic milestones. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully delivered 10 science and technology instruments to the Moon on March 2, 2025. It touched down near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a basin over 300 miles wide in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side. Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 Mission, landed near the Moon’s South Pole on March 6, marking the southernmost lunar landing ever achieved.
The lunar deliveries for NASA have collected valuable insights and data to inform the next giant leap in humanity’s return to the Moon, helping scientists address challenges like lunar dust mitigation, resource utilization, and radiation tolerance.
Meet the Johnson employees contributing to lunar innovations that are helping to shape the future of human presence on the Moon.
Mark Dillard: Pioneering Payload Integration
Official NASA portrait of CLPS Payload Integration Manager Mark Dillard. NASA/James Blair Mark Dillard, Blue Ghost Mission 1 payload integration manager, has been at the forefront of space exploration for more than 40 years, including 28 years with the International Space Station Program. Beyond ensuring all NASA payloads are integrated onto the lunar landers, he oversees schedules, costs, and technical oversight while fostering strong partnerships with CLPS vendors and NASA science teams.
“I believe NASA is about to enter its next Golden Age,” said Dillard. “The enthusiasm of Firefly’s engineering team is contagious, and it has been a privilege to witness their success.”
Dillard’s career includes five years as NASA’s resident manager in Torino, Italy, where he oversaw the development of International Space Station modules, including three logistics modules, the European Space Agency’s Columbus module, and two space station nodes.
Mark Dillard in the clean room with Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander behind him. “Like Apollo, Shuttle, and the International Space Station Programs, Artemis will add the next building block for space exploration,” said Dillard. “The CLPS initiative is a significant building block, aiming to establish reliable and long-term access to the lunar surface.”
Susan Lederer: Guiding Science in Real Time
Official portrait of CLPS Project Scientist Susan Lederer.NASA/Bill Stafford Susan Lederer, IM-2 project scientist, has spent years ensuring all the NASA instruments are fully prepared for lunar operations. She oversees real-time science operations from IM’s Nova Control Center, working to maximize the mission’s scientific return and prepare for the next generation of astronauts to explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
“We have done our best with remote data, but the only way to truly understand the Moon—how to drill for resources, how to live on another celestial body—is to go there and do the experiments,” she said. “Now, we get to do that.”
Lederer’s path to CLPS was shaped by a background in space exploration, astrophysics, and planetary science. She has contributed to multiple spacecraft missions, including NASA’s Deep Impact mission, which sent a projectile into Comet Tempel 1, and a separate mission that retrieved a sample from asteroid Itokawa.
On Ascension Island, a remote joint U.S. Air Force and Royal Air Force base, she co-led the construction of a 20,000-pound optical telescope to study space debris. Her work spans collaborations with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a tenure as a physics professor, and the design of impact experiments at NASA’s Experimental Impact Lab, where she used a vertical gun firing projectiles at speeds exceeding those of sniper rifles to study asteroid and comet collisions.
Lederer has logged hundreds of hours conducting observing runs at professional observatories worldwide, where she refined both her scientific precision and her ability to repair instruments while working alone on remote mountaintops.
As a private pilot and SciComm (the science equivalent of Capsule Communicator) for NASA’s Desert Research and Technology Studies, she honed her mission communication skills. She was also part of an international team that discovered two extrasolar planetary systems—one with a single Earth-sized planet and another with seven—orbiting ultracool red dwarf stars.
Her expertise has uniquely prepared her to oversee real-time science operations for lunar missions in high-intensity environments.
NASA and Intuitive Machines IM-1 lunar lander mission status press briefing. From left to right: Steve Altemus, Intuitive Machines’ chief executive officer and co-founder; Dr. Joel Kearns, NASA’s deputy associate administrator, Exploration, Science Mission Directorate; Dr. Tim Crain, Intuitive Machines’ chief technology officer and co-founder; and CLPS Project Scientist Susan Lederer. NASA/Robert Markowitz Lederer emphasizes the importance of both scientific discovery and the practical realities of living and working on another world—a challenge NASA is tackling for the first time in history.
“Honestly, it’s when things don’t go as planned that you learn the most,” she said. “I’m looking forward to the surprises that we get to solve together as a team. That’s our greatest strength—the knowledge and teamwork that make this all happen.”
Lederer credits the success of CLPS lunar deliveries to the dedication of teams working on payloads like Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 and Lunar Retroreflector Array, as well as peers within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Space Technology Mission Directorate, and Intuitive Machines.
“What we do every day in CLPS creates a new world for exploration that is efficient in schedule, cost, and gaining science and technology knowledge in these areas like we’ve never done before,” said Lederer. “It feels very much like being a trailblazer for inspiring future generations of explorers – at least that’s my hope, to keep the next generation inspired and engaged in the wonders of our universe.”
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By NASA
This video sparkles with synthetic supernovae from the OpenUniverse project, which simulates observations from NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. More than a million exploding stars flare into visibility and then slowly fade away. The true brightness of each transient event has been magnified by a factor of 10,000 for visibility, and no background light has been added to the simulated images. The pattern of squares shows Roman’s full field of view.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and M. Troxel The universe is ballooning outward at an ever-faster clip under the power of an unknown force dubbed dark energy. One of the major goals for NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is to help astronomers gather clues to the mystery. One team is setting the stage now to help astronomers prepare for this exciting science.
“Roman will scan the cosmos a thousand times faster than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope can while offering Hubble-like image quality,” said Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland-Baltimore county working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a co-principal investigator of the Supernova Cosmology Project Infrastructure Team preparing for the mission’s High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey. “We’re going to have an overwhelming amount of data, and we want to make it so scientists can use it from day one.”
Roman will repeatedly look at wide, deep regions of the sky in near-infrared light, opening up a whole new view of the universe and revealing all sorts of things going bump in the night. That includes stars being shredded as they pass too close to a black hole, intense emissions from galaxy centers, and a variety of stellar explosions called supernovae.
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This data sonification transforms a vast simulation of a cosmic survey from NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into a symphony of stellar explosions. Each supernova’s brightness controls its volume, while its color sets its pitch –– redder, more distant supernovae correspond to deep, low tones while bluer, nearer ones correspond to higher frequencies. The sound in stereo mirrors their locations in the sky. The result sounds like celestial wind chimes, offering a way to “listen” to cosmic fireworks. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, M. Troxel, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) Cosmic Radar Guns
Scientists estimate around half a dozen stars explode somewhere in the observable universe every minute. On average, one of them will be a special variety called type Ia that can help astronomers measure the universe.
These explosions peak at a similar intrinsic brightness, allowing scientists to find their distances simply by measuring how bright they appear.
Scientists can also study the light of these supernovae to find out how quickly they are moving away from us. By comparing how fast they’re receding at different distances, scientists will trace cosmic expansion over time.
Using dozens of type Ia supernovae, scientists discovered that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. Roman will find tens of thousands, including very distant ones, offering more clues about the nature of dark energy and how it may have changed throughout the history of the universe.
“Roman’s near-infrared view will help us peer farther because more distant light is stretched, or reddened, as it travels across expanding space,” said Benjamin Rose, an assistant professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and a co-principal investigator of the infrastructure team. “And opening a bigger window, so to speak, will help us get a better understanding of these objects as a whole,” which would allow scientists to learn more about dark energy. That could include discovering new physics, or figuring out the universe’s fate.
The People’s Telescope
Members of the planning team have been part of the community process to seek input from scientists worldwide on how the survey should be designed and how the analysis pipeline should work. Gathering public input in this way is unusual for a space telescope, but it’s essential for Roman because each large, deep observation will enable a wealth of science in addition to fulfilling the survey’s main goal of probing dark energy.
Rather than requiring that many individual scientists submit proposals to reserve their own slice of space telescope time, Roman’s major surveys will be coordinated openly, and all the data will become public right away.
“Instead of a single team pursuing one science goal, everyone will be able to comb through Roman’s data for a wide variety of purposes,” Rose said. “Everyone will get to play right away.”
This animation shows a possible tiling pattern of part of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s High Latitude Time-Domain Survey. The observing program, which is being designed by a community process, is expected to have two components: wide (covering 18 square degrees, a region of sky as large as about 90 full moons) and deep (covering about 5.5 square degrees, about as large as 25 full moons). This animation shows the deeper portion, which would peer back to when the universe was about 500 million years old, less than 4 percent of its current age of 13.8 billion years.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center This Is a Drill
NASA plans to announce the survey design for Roman’s three core surveys, including the High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey, this spring. Then the planning team will simulate it in its entirety.
“It’s kind of like a recipe,” Hounsell said. “You put in your observing strategy — how many days, which filters — and add in ‘spices’ like uncertainties, calibration effects, and the things we don’t know so well about the instrument or supernovae themselves that would affect our results. We can inject supernovae into the synthetic images and develop the tools we’ll need to analyze and evaluate the data.”
Scientists will continue using the synthetic data even after Roman begins observing, tweaking all aspects of the simulation and correcting unknowns to see which resulting images best match real observations. Scientists can then fine-tune our understanding of the universe’s underlying physics.
“We assume that all supernovae are the same regardless of when they occurred in the history of the universe, but that might not be the case,” Hounsell said. “We’re going to look further back in time than we’ve ever done with type Ia supernovae, and we’re not completely sure if the physics we understand now will hold up.”
There are reasons to suspect they may not. The very first stars were made almost exclusively of hydrogen and helium, compared to stars today which contain several dozen elements. Those ancient stars also lived in very different environments than stars today. Galaxies were growing and merging, and stars were forming at a furious pace before things began calming down between about 8 and 10 billion years ago.
“Roman will very dramatically add to our understanding of this cosmic era,” Rose said. “We’ll learn more about cosmic evolution and dark energy, and thanks to Roman’s large deep view, we’ll get to do much more science too with the same data. Our work will help everyone hit the ground running after Roman launches.”
For more information about the Roman Space Telescope visit www.nasa.gov/roman.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Mar 11, 2025 EditorAshley BalzerContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper as it flies by Mars, using the planet’s gravitational force to alter the spacecraft’s path on its way to the Jupiter system. NASA/JPL-Caltech The orbiter bound for Jupiter’s moon Europa will investigate whether the moon is habitable, but it first will get the help of Mars’ gravitational force to get to deep space.
On March 1, NASA’s Europa Clipper will streak just 550 miles (884 kilometers) above the surface of Mars for what’s known as a gravity assist — a maneuver to bend the spacecraft’s trajectory and position it for a critical leg of its long voyage to the Jupiter system. The close flyby offers a bonus opportunity for mission scientists, who will test their radar instrument and thermal imager.
Europa Clipper will be closest to the Red Planet at 12:57 p.m. EST, approaching it at about 15.2 miles per second (24.5 kilometers per second) relative to the Sun. For about 12 hours prior and 12 hours after that time, the spacecraft will use the gravitational pull of Mars to pump the brakes and reshape its orbit around the Sun. As the orbiter leaves Mars behind, it will be traveling at a speed of about 14 miles per second (22.5 kilometers per second).
The flyby sets up Europa Clipper for its second gravity assist — a close encounter with Earth in December 2026 that will act as a slingshot and give the spacecraft a velocity boost. After that, it’s a straightforward trek to the outer solar system; the probe is set to arrive at Jupiter’s orbit in April 2030.
“We come in very fast, and the gravity from Mars acts on the spacecraft to bend its path,” said Brett Smith, a mission systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Meanwhile, we’re exchanging a small amount of energy with the planet, so we leave on a path that will bring us back past Earth.”
This animation depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper as it flies by the Red Planet. The spacecraft will use the planet’s gravity to bend its path slightly, setting up the next leg of its long journey to investigate Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. NASA/JPL-Caltech Harnessing Gravity
Europa Clipper launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 14, 2024, via a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, embarking on a 1.8-billion-mile (2.9-billion-kilometer) trip to Jupiter, which is five times farther from the Sun than Earth is. Without the assists from Mars in 2025 and from Earth in 2026, the 12,750-pound (6,000-kilogram) spacecraft would require additional propellant, which adds weight and cost, or it would take much longer to get to Jupiter.
Gravity assists are baked into NASA’s mission planning, as engineers figure out early on how to make the most of the momentum in our solar system. Famously, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, which launched in 1977, took advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime planetary lineup to fly by the gas giants, harnessing their gravity and capturing data about them.
While navigators at JPL, which manages Europa Clipper and Voyager, have been designing flight paths and using gravity assists for decades, the process of calculating a spacecraft’s trajectory in relation to planets that are constantly on the move is never simple.
“It’s like a game of billiards around the solar system, flying by a couple of planets at just the right angle and timing to build up the energy we need to get to Jupiter and Europa,” said JPL’s Ben Bradley, Europa Clipper mission planner. “Everything has to line up — the geometry of the solar system has to be just right to pull it off.”
About 4½ months after its launch, NASA’s Europa Clipper is set to perform a gravity as-sist maneuver as it flies by Mars on March 1. Next year the spacecraft will swing back by Earth for a final gravity assist before NASA/JPL-Caltech Refining the Path
Navigators sent the spacecraft on an initial trajectory that left some buffer around Mars so that if anything were to go wrong in the weeks after launch, Europa Clipper wouldn’t risk impacting the planet. Then the team used the spacecraft’s engines to veer closer to Mars’ orbit in what are called trajectory correction maneuvers, or TCMs.
Mission controllers have performed three TCMs to set the stage for the Mars gravity assist — in early November, late January, and on Feb. 14. They will conduct another TCM about 15 days after the Mars flyby to ensure the spacecraft is on track and are likely to conduct additional ones — upwards of 200 — throughout the mission, which is set to last until 2034.
Opportunity for Science
While navigators are relying on the gravity assist for fuel efficiency and to keep the spacecraft on their planned path, scientists are looking forward to the event to take advantage of the close proximity to the Red Planet and test two of the mission’s science instruments.
About a day prior to the closest approach, the mission will calibrate the thermal imager, resulting in a multicolored image of Mars in the months following as the data is returned and scientists process the data. And near closest approach, they’ll have the radar instrument perform a test of its operations — the first time all its components will be tested together. The radar antennas are so massive, and the wavelengths they produce so long that it wasn’t possible for engineers to test them on Earth before launch.
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/
Check out Europa Clipper's Mars flyby in 3D News Media Contacts
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
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Last Updated Feb 25, 2025 Related Terms
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