On 14 October 2024, NASA launched the Europa Clipper probe from the Kennedy Space Center (Florida), lifted by a Falcon Heavy heavy-lift vehicle belonging to SpaceX. With a total mass close to 6,000 kilograms including its onboard propellants, it is the most massive probe the agency has ever designed for a planetary mission. Its target is the Jovian system, and more precisely Europa, one of Jupiter's Galilean moons.
In plain terms
Europa Clipper is a probe that left Florida in October 2024 bound for Europa, a moon of Jupiter covered by a thick layer of ice beneath which lies a vast liquid ocean. Rather than entering orbit around that moon, the spacecraft will skim past it dozens of times in close flybys. To look beneath the surface, it carries among other things a radar able to pass through the ice, in the manner of an echo returned by the deeper layers. It is also the heaviest planetary probe the agency has ever built: close to six tonnes at liftoff, propellants included. Most of the journey still lies ahead, since the trajectory passes by Mars and then Earth, and arrival in orbit around Jupiter is scheduled only for April 2030.
Mission fact sheet
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Agency | NASA |
| Probe | Europa Clipper |
| Launch date | 14 October 2024 |
| Launch site | Kennedy Space Center (Florida) |
| Launch vehicle | Falcon Heavy (heavy-lift vehicle, SpaceX) |
| Mass at launch | close to 6,000 kilograms, onboard propellants included |
| Distinctive feature | most massive probe ever designed by the agency for a planetary mission |
| Target | Europa, one of Jupiter's Galilean moons (Jovian system) |
| Payload | nine dedicated measurement instruments |
| Observation mode | repeated close flybys, dozens of times |
Scientific objective and instruments
The operational objective of this mission is to fly past the moon dozens of times at close range, in order to probe its thick surface layer of ice and analyse its vast internal liquid ocean. The platform carries nine dedicated measurement instruments, three of which are named explicitly.
| Instrument named | Nature of the measurement |
|---|---|
| Ice-penetrating radar | radar sounding through the ice layer |
| Infrared imaging spectrometer | imaging spectrometry in the infrared |
| Thermal emission camera | imaging of thermal emission |
Trajectory and milestones
The trajectory profile includes gravity-assist manoeuvres around Mars, then around Earth.
| Milestone | Date | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Launch | 14 October 2024 | Kennedy Space Center (Florida), Falcon Heavy launch vehicle |
| Mars gravity assist | 1 March 2025 | flyby at an altitude of 884 km |
| Earth gravity assist | December 2026 | planned |
| Jupiter orbit insertion | April 2030 | scheduled |
Sources
References verified during the fact-checking audit of August 2026: these are the pages
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