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Juice deployments complete: final form for Jupiter
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By NASA
This photo shows the Optical Telescope Assembly for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which was recently delivered to the largest clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.NASA/Chris Gunn NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is one giant step closer to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. The mission has now received its final major delivery: the Optical Telescope Assembly, which includes a 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirror, nine additional mirrors, and supporting structures and electronics. The assembly was delivered Nov. 7. to the largest clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where the observatory is being built.
The telescope will focus cosmic light and send it to Roman’s instruments, revealing many billions of objects strewn throughout space and time. Using the mission’s Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel infrared camera, astronomers will survey the cosmos all the way from the outskirts of our solar system toward the edge of the observable universe. Scientists will use Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument to test new technologies for dimming host stars to image planets and dusty disks around them in far better detail than ever before.
“We have a top-notch telescope that’s well aligned and has great optical performance at the cold temperatures it will see in space,” said Bente Eegholm, optics lead for Roman’s Optical Telescope Assembly at NASA Goddard. “I am now looking forward to the next phase where the telescope and instruments will be put together to form the Roman observatory.”
In this photo, optical engineer Bente Eegholm inspects the surface of the primary mirror for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) mirror is a major component of the Optical Telescope Assembly, which also contains nine additional mirrors and supporting structures and electronics.NASA/Chris Gunn Designed and built by L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York, the assembly incorporates key optics (including the primary mirror) that were made available to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office. The team at L3Harris then reshaped the mirror and built upon the inherited hardware to ensure it would meet Roman’s specifications for expansive, sensitive infrared observations.
“The telescope will be the foundation of all of the science Roman will do, so its design and performance are among the largest factors in the mission’s survey capability,” said Josh Abel, lead Optical Telescope Assembly systems engineer at NASA Goddard.
The team at Goddard worked closely with L3Harris to ensure these stringent requirements were met and that the telescope assembly will integrate smoothly into the rest of the Roman observatory.
The assembly’s design and performance will largely determine the quality of the mission’s results, so the manufacturing and testing processes were extremely rigorous. Each optical component was tested individually prior to being assembled and assessed together earlier this year. The tests helped ensure that the alignment of the telescope’s mirrors will change as expected when the telescope reaches its operating temperature in space.
Then, the telescope was put through tests simulating the extreme shaking and intense sound waves associated with launch. Engineers also made sure that tiny components called actuators, which will adjust some of the mirrors in space, move as predicted. And the team measured gases released from the assembly as it transitioned from normal air pressure to a vacuum –– the same phenomenon that has led astronauts to report that space smells gunpowdery or metallic. If not carefully controlled, these gases could contaminate the telescope or instruments.
Upon arrival at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Optical Telescope Assembly for the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was lifted out of the shipping fixture and placed with other mission hardware in Goddard’s largest clean room. Now, it will be installed onto Roman’s Instrument Carrier, a structure that will keep the telescope and Roman’s two instruments optically aligned. The assembly’s electronics box –– essentially the telescope’s brain –– will be mounted within the spacecraft along with Roman’s other electronics.NASA/Chris Gunn Finally, the telescope underwent a month-long thermal vacuum test to ensure it will withstand the temperature and pressure environment of space. The team closely monitored it during cold operating conditions to ensure the telescope’s temperature will remain constant to within a fraction of a degree. Holding the temperature constant allows the telescope to remain in stable focus, making Roman’s high-resolution images consistently sharp. Nearly 100 heaters on the telescope will help keep all parts of it at a very stable temperature.
“It is very difficult to design and build a system to hold temperatures to such a tight stability, and the telescope performed exceptionally,” said Christine Cottingham, thermal lead for Roman’s Optical Telescope Assembly at NASA Goddard.
Now that the assembly has arrived at Goddard, it will be installed onto Roman’s Instrument Carrier, a structure that will keep the telescope and Roman’s two instruments optically aligned. The assembly’s electronics box –– essentially the telescope’s brain –– will be mounted within the spacecraft along with Roman’s other electronics.
With this milestone, Roman remains on track for launch by May 2027.
“Congratulations to the team on this stellar accomplishment!” said J. Scott Smith, the assembly’s telescope manager at NASA Goddard. “The completion of the telescope marks the end of an epoch and incredible journey for this team, and yet only a chapter in building Roman. The team’s efforts have advanced technology and ignited the imaginations of those who dream of exploring the stars.”
Virtually tour an interactive version of the telescope 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.
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
301-286-1940
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Last Updated Nov 14, 2024 EditorAshley BalzerContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
4 min read
Final Venus Flyby for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Queues Closest Sun Pass
On Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will complete its final Venus gravity assist maneuver, passing within 233 miles (376 km) of Venus’ surface. The flyby will adjust Parker’s trajectory into its final orbital configuration, bringing the spacecraft to within an unprecedented 3.86 million miles of the solar surface on Dec. 24, 2024. It will be the closest any human made object has been to the Sun.
Parker’s Venus flybys have become boons for new Venus science thanks to a chance discovery from its Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, or WISPR. The instrument peers out from Parker and away from the Sun to see fine details in the solar wind. But on July 11, 2020, during Parker’s third Venus flyby, scientists turned WISPR toward Venus in hopes of tracking changes in the planet’s thick cloud cover. The images revealed a surprise: A portion of WISPR’s data, which captures visible and near infrared light, seemed to see all the way through the clouds to the Venusian surface below.
“The WISPR cameras can see through the clouds to the surface of Venus, which glows in the near-infrared because it’s so hot,” said Noam Izenberg, a space scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Venus, sizzling at approximately 869 degrees Fahrenheit (about 465 C), was radiating through the clouds.
The WISPR images from the 2020 flyby, as well as the next flyby in 2021, revealed Venus’ surface in a new light. But they also raised puzzling questions, and scientists have devised the Nov. 6 flyby to help answer them.
Left: A series of WISPR images of the nightside of Venus from Parker Solar Probe’s fourth flyby showing near infrared emissions from the surface. In these images, lighter shades represent warmer temperatures and darker shades represent cooler. Right: A combined mosaic of radar images of Venus’ surface from NASA’s Magellan mission, where the brightness indicates radar properties from smooth (dark) to rough (light), and the colors indicate elevation from low (blue) to high (red). The Venus images correspond well with data from the Magellan spacecraft, showing dark and light patterns that line up with surface regions Magellan captured when it mapped Venus’ surface using radar from 1990 to 1994. Yet some parts of the WISPR images appear brighter than expected, hinting at extra information captured by WISPR’s data. Is WISPR picking up on chemical differences on the surface, where the ground is made of different material? Perhaps it’s seeing variations in age, where more recent lava flows added a fresh coat to the Venusian surface.
“Because it flies over a number of similar and different landforms than the previous Venus flybys, the Nov. 6 flyby will give us more context to evaluate whether WISPR can help us distinguish physical or even chemical properties of Venus’ surface,” Izenberg said.
After the Nov. 6 flyby, Parker will be on course to swoop within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface, the final objective of the historic mission first conceived over 65 years ago. No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker’s data will be charting as-yet uncharted territory. In this hyper-close regime, Parker will cut through plumes of plasma still connected to the Sun. It is close enough to pass inside a solar eruption, like a surfer diving under a crashing ocean wave.
“This is a major engineering accomplishment,” said Adam Szabo, project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The closest approach to the Sun, or perihelion, will occur on Dec. 24, 2024, during which mission control will be out of contact with the spacecraft. Parker will send a beacon tone on Dec. 27, 2024, to confirm its success and the spacecraft’s health. Parker will remain in this orbit for the remainder of its mission, completing two more perihelia at the same distance.
Parker Solar Probe is 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 Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, manages the Parker Solar Probe mission for NASA and designed, built, and operates the spacecraft.
By Miles Hatfield
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Nov 04, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
Learn Home Europa Trek: NASA Offers a New… Europa Clipper Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Activation Stories Citizen Science 3 min read
Europa Trek: NASA Offers a New Guided Tour of Jupiter’s Ocean Moon
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is on its way to explore a moon of Jupiter that researchers believe may be one of the best places in the Solar System to search for life beyond Earth. While the spacecraft makes its more-than-five year journey to Europa, scientists, students, teachers, and the public can tour and explore the landforms of Europa with newly-released enhancements to NASA’s Europa Trek web portal.
One of the largest of Jupiter’s nearly 100 recognized moons, Europa is covered with a global ice cap. But beneath that crust of ice, researchers have found an ocean of liquid water, estimated to have about twice the volume of all of Earth’s oceans combined. This vast amount of liquid water is of particular interest to astrobiologists, scientists studying the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the Universe. Though Europa’s ocean remains hidden beneath its global crust of ice, we can get important clues about its nature by studying the remarkable landforms of Europa’s icy surface.
To accompany the launch of Europa Clipper, NASA’s Solar System Treks Project released exciting new enhancements to its online Europa Trek portal on September 30, 2024. The new additions to Europa Trek allow users to interactively fly over and explore high-resolution imagery of Europa’s surface from the Voyager, Galileo, and Juno missions. Users can also take a new guided tour of Europa’s amazing landforms, with commentary developed by a collaboration between NASA’s Astrobiology Science Communication Guild and NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute. The tour and its commentary introduce virtual explorers to the geology and possible biological significance of the diverse features of Europa’s surface.
“This is really fun. It’s cool how you can zoom into the high resolution data. I’ll spread the word about using this!” – Bob Pappalardo, Europa Clipper Project Scientist
The new tour and capabilities of Europa Trek were featured at the Europa Clipper public launch program at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center on October 6,2024, in advance of the October 14 launch of the mission. As part of the public program conducted by NASA’s Planetary Mission Program Office, the Europa Trek exhibit allowed hundreds of visitors to try their hands at flying over Europa and visualizing its exotic terrain.
NASA’s Solar System Treks is an infrastructure project within NASA’s Science Activation Team. Their online portals are used for mission planning, planetary science research, and Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics (STEM) education. NASA’s Astrobiology Science Communication Guild is an international, community-based network of astrobiologists who engage in science communication with diverse audiences and learners. Watch for future collaborations between Solar System Treks and the Astrobiology Science Communication Guild at more locations across the Solar System!
Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
A stop along the guided tour of Europa landforms Share
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By NASA
On Oct. 18, 1989, space shuttle Atlantis took off on its fifth flight, STS-34, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Its five-person crew of Commander Donald E. Williams, Pilot Michael J. McCulley, and Mission Specialists Shannon W. Lucid, Franklin R. Chang-Díaz, and Ellen S. Baker flew a five-day mission that deployed the Galileo spacecraft, managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, to study Jupiter. The astronauts deployed Galileo and its upper stage on their first day in space, sending the spacecraft on its six-year journey to the giant outer planet. Following its arrival at Jupiter in December 1995, Galileo deployed its atmospheric probe while the main spacecraft entered orbit around the planet, studying it in great detail for eight years.
Left: The STS-34 crew of Mission Specialists Shannon W. Lucid, sitting left, Franklin R. Chang-Díaz, and Ellen S. Baker; Commander Donald E. Williams, standing left, and Pilot Michael J. McCulley. Middle: The STS-34 crew patch. Right: The Galileo spacecraft in Atlantis’ payload bay in preparation for STS-34.
In November 1988, NASA announced Williams, McCulley, Lucid, Chang-Díaz, and Baker as the STS-34 crew for the flight planned for October 1989. Williams and Lucid, both from the Class of 1978, had each flown once before, on STS-51D in April 1985 and STS-51G in June 1985, respectively. Chang-Díaz, selected in 1980, had flown once before on STS-61C in January 1986, while for McCulley and Baker, both selected in 1984, STS-34 represented their first spaceflight. During their five-day mission, the astronauts planned to deploy Galileo and its Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) on the first flight day. Following the Galileo deployment, the astronauts planned to conduct experiments in the middeck and the payload bay.
Left: Voyager 2 image of Jupiter. Middle: Galileo as it appeared in 1983. Right: Illustration of Galileo’s trajectory from Earth to Jupiter.
Following the successful Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions, NASA’s next step to study Jupiter in depth involved an ambitious orbiter and atmospheric entry probe. NASA first proposed the Jupiter Orbiter Probe mission in 1975, and Congress approved it in 1977 for a planned 1982 launch on the space shuttle. In 1978, NASA renamed the spacecraft Galileo after the 17th century Italian astronomer who turned his new telescope toward Jupiter and discovered its four largest moons. Delays in the shuttle program and changes in the upper stage to send Galileo from low Earth orbit on to Jupiter resulted in the slip of its launch to May 1986, when on Atlantis’ STS-61G mission, a Centaur upper stage would send the spacecraft toward Jupiter.
The January 1986 Challenger accident not only halted shuttle flights for 31 months but also canceled the Centaur as an upper stage for the orbiter. Remanifested onto the less powerful IUS, Galileo would require gravity assist maneuvers at Venus and twice at Earth to reach its destination, extending the transit time to six years. Galileo’s launch window extended from Oct. 12 to Nov. 21, 1989, dictated by planetary alignments required for the gravity assists. During the transit, Galileo had the opportunity to pass by two main belt asteroids, providing the first closeup study of this class of objects. Upon arrival at Jupiter, Galileo would release its probe to return data as it descended through Jupiter’s atmosphere while the main spacecraft would enter an elliptical orbit around the planet, from which it would conduct in depth studies for a minimum of 22 months.
Left: The Galileo atmospheric probe during preflight processing. Middle: The Galileo orbiter during preflight processing. Right: Space shuttle Atlantis arrives at Launch Pad 39B.
The Galileo atmospheric probe arrived at KSC on April 17 and the main spacecraft on May 16, following which workers joined the two together for preflight testing. Meanwhile, Atlantis returned to KSC on May 15, following the STS-30 mission that deployed the Magellan spacecraft to Venus. The next day workers towed it into the Orbiter Processing Facility to prepare it for STS-34. In KSC’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), workers began stacking the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB) on June 15, completing the activity on July 22, and then adding the External Tank (ET) on July 30. Atlantis rolled over to the VAB on Aug. 22 for mating with the ET and SRBs. Galileo, now mated to its IUS, transferred to Launch Pad 39B on Aug. 25, awaiting Atlantis’ arrival four days later.
The next day, workers placed Galileo into Atlantis’ payload bay and began preparations for the Oct. 12 launch. The Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test took place on Sept. 14-15, with the astronauts participating in the final few hours as on launch day. A faulty computer aboard the IUS threatened to delay the mission, but workers replaced it without impacting the planned launch date. The five-member astronaut crew arrived at KSC Oct. 9 for final preparations for the flight and teams began the countdown for launch. A main engine controller problem halted the countdown at T minus 19 hours. The work required to replace it pushed the launch date back to Oct. 17. On that day, the weather at the pad supported a launch, but clouds and rain at the Shuttle Landing Facility several miles away, and later rain at a Transatlantic (TAL) abort site, violated launch constraints, so managers called a 24-hour scrub. The next day, the weather cooperated at all sites, and other than a brief hold to reconfigure Atlantis’ computers from one TAL site to another, the countdown proceeded smoothly.
Left: STS-34 astronauts pose following their Sept. 6 preflight press conference. Middle: Liftoff of Atlantis on the STS-34 mission. Right: Controllers in the Firing Room watch Atlantis take to the skies.
Atlantis lifted off Launch Pad 39B at 12:53 p.m. EDT on Oct. 18. As soon as the shuttle cleared the launch tower, control shifted to the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where Ascent Flight Director Ronald D. Dittemore and his team of controllers, including astronaut Frank L. Culbertson serving as the capsule communicator, or capcom, monitored all aspects of the launch. Following main engine cutoff, Atlantis and its crew had achieved orbit. Forty minutes later, a firing of the two Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines circularized the orbit at 185 miles. The astronauts removed their bulky Launch and Entry Suits (LES) and prepared Atlantis for orbital operations, including opening the payload bay doors.
Left: Galileo and its Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) in Atlantis’ payload bay, just before deployment. Middle: Galileo and its IUS moments after deployment. Right: Galileo departs from the shuttle.
Preparations for Galileo’s deployment began shortly thereafter. In Mission Control, Flight Director J. Milton Heflin and his team, including capcom Michael A. Baker, took over to assist the crew with deployment operations. The astronauts activated Galileo and the IUS, and ground teams began checking out their systems, with the first TV from the mission showing the spacecraft and its upper stage in the payload bay. Lucid raised Galileo’s tilt table first to 29 degrees, McCulley oriented Atlantis to the deployment attitude, then Lucid raised the tilt table to the deploy position of 58 degrees. With all systems operating normally, Mission Control gave the go for deploy.
Six hours and 20 minutes into the mission, Lucid deployed the Jupiter-bound spacecraft and its upper stage, weighing a combined 38,483 pounds. “Galileo is on its way to another world,” Williams called down. The combination glided over the shuttle’s crew compartment. Williams and McCulley fired the two OMS engines to move Atlantis a safe distance away from the IUS burn that took place one hour after deployment, sending Galileo on its circuitous journey through the inner solar system before finally heading to Jupiter. The primary task of the mission accomplished, the astronauts prepared for their first night’s sleep in space.
STS-34 crew Earth observation photographs. Left: The Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. Middle left: Jamaica. Middle right: Greece. Right: The greater Tokyo area with Mt. Fuji at upper left.
For the next three days, the STS-34 astronauts focused their attention on the middeck and payload bay experiments, as well as taking photographs of the Earth. Located in the payload bay, the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet experiment, managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, measured ozone in the Earth’s atmosphere and compared the results with data obtained by weather satellites at the same locations. The comparisons served to calibrate the weather satellite instruments. Baker conducted the Growth Hormone Concentrations and Distributions in Plants experiment, that investigated the effect of the hormone Auxin in corn shoot tissue. Three days into the mission, she placed plant canisters into a freezer to arrest plant growth and for postflight analysis. Chang-Díaz and Lucid had prime responsibility for the Polymer Morphology experiment, developed by the 3M Company. They used a laptop to control experiment parameters as the hardware melted different samples to see the effects of weightlessness. Baker conducted several medical investigations, including studying blood vessels in the retina, changes in leg volume due to fluid shifts, and carotid blood flow.
Left: The Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet experiment in Atlantis’ payload bay. Middle: Ellen S. Baker, right, performs a carotid blood flow experiment on Franklin R. Chang-Díaz. Right: Chang-Díaz describes the Polymer Mixing experiment.
Left: The STS-34 crew poses on Atlantis’ fight deck. Middle: Atlantis touches down at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Right: The STS-34 astronauts pose in front of Atlantis.
On Oct. 23, the astronauts awakened for their final day in space. Because of high winds expected at the primary landing site at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB), managers moved the landing up by two revolutions. In preparation for reentry, the astronauts donned their orange LESs and closed the payload bay doors. Williams and McCulley oriented Atlantis into the deorbit attitude, with the OMS engines facing in the direction of travel. Over the Indian Ocean, they fired the two engines for 2 minutes 48 seconds to bring the spacecraft out of orbit. They reoriented the orbiter to fly with its heat shield exposed to the direction of flight as it encountered Earth’s atmosphere at 419,000 feet. The buildup of ionized gases caused by the heat of reentry prevented communications for about 15 minutes but provided the astronauts a great light show. The entry profile differed slightly from the planned one because Atlantis needed to make up 500 miles of cross range since it returned two orbits early. After completing the Heading Alignment Circle turn, Williams aligned Atlantis with the runway, and McCulley lowered the landing gear. Atlantis touched down and rolled to a stop, ending a 4-day 23-hour 39-minute flight, having completed 79 orbits of the Earth. Following postlanding inspections, workers placed Atlantis atop a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a modified Boeing-747, and the combination left Edwards on Oct. 28. Following refueling stops at Biggs Army Airfield in Texas and Columbus AFB in Mississippi, Atlantis and the SCA arrived back at KSC on Oct. 29. Workers began to prepare it for its next flight, STS-36 in February 1990.
Left: An illustration of Galileo in orbit around Jupiter. Right: Galileo’s major mission events, including encounters with Jupiter’s moons during its eight-year orbital study.
One hour after deployment from Atlantis, the IUS ignited to send Galileo on its six-year journey to Jupiter, with the spacecraft flying free of the rocket stage 47 minutes later. The spacecraft’s circuitous path took it first to Venus on Feb. 10, 1990, back to Earth on Dec. 8, 1990, and again on Dec. 8, 1992, each time picking up velocity from the gravity assist to send it on to the giant planet. Along the way, Galileo also passed by and imaged the main belt asteroids Gaspra and Ida and observed the crash of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 onto Jupiter. On Dec. 7, 1995, the probe plummeted through Jupiter’s dense atmosphere, returning data along the way, until it succumbed to extreme pressures and temperatures. Meanwhile, Galileo entered orbit around Jupiter and far exceeded its 22-month primary mission, finally plunging into the giant planet on Sept. 21, 2003, 14 years after leaving Earth. During its 35 orbits around Jupiter, it studied not only the planet but made close observations of many of its moons, especially its four largest ones, Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and Io.
Left: Galileo image of could formations on Jupiter. Right: Closeup image of terrain on Europa.
Of particular interest to many scientists, Galileo made 11 close encounters with icy Europa, coming as close as 125 miles, revealing incredible details about its surface. Based on Galileo data, scientists now believe a vast ocean lies beneath Europa’s icy crust, and heating from inside the moon may produce conditions favorable for supporting life. NASA’s Europa Clipper, launched on Oct. 14, 2024, hopes to expand on Galileo’s observations when it reaches Jupiter in April 2030.
Enjoy the crew narrated video of the STS-34 mission. Read Williams‘ recollections of the STS-34 mission in his oral history with the JSC History Office.
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By NASA
SpaceX A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.
Europa Clipper is the first mission designed to conduct a detailed study of Jupiter’s moon Europa to determine if it currently has habitable conditions. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km) to reach Jupiter in April 2030. It will orbit Jupiter and conduct 49 close flybys of Europa.
Follow Europa Clipper’s journey in NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System app.
Image credit: SpaceX
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