NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will launch later this year. Here's what to know

PASADENA, Calif. (KABC) -- NASA is getting ready to launch is new project into space later this year.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft is in its final preparations before being shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Eyewitness News had a chance to go inside the clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to see it up close.

The goal of the satellite is to explore Jupiter's icy moon Europa, which scientists believe could support life.

"Many scientists believe that Europa is the best candidate for finding life beyond Earth in our solar system," said Sam Howell, a project staff scientist for the Europa Clipper mission.

Once in space, it'll perform nearly 50 flybys of Europa while gathering detailed measurements.

The spacecraft has two cameras and spectrometers to take photos and produce composition maps of Europa's surface.

"Once we launch in October, it's a 5 and a half year journey to Jupiter. Once we reach Jupiter and Europa, then we have a 4-year prime science mission, where we do an in-depth study of Europa - so overall about a 10-year mission," said Jordan Evans, a project manager for the Europa Clipper mission.

According to NASA, there's evidence showing that beneath Europa's icy shell is a global ocean of water.

"We know that there's more water there, we think, than all of Earth's oceans combined. So we're talking about a vast ocean of liquid water, a little bit less salty than Earth's oceans. And we think that it's been there over the age of the solar system so we're talking 4 billion years," said Cynthia Phillips, a project staff scientist for the Europa Clipper mission.

The Europa Clipper will be the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission. The mission launch period opens Oct. 10.