NASA's Europa Clipper ready to launch to Jupiter's moon next month
PASADENA, Calif. (KABC) -- NASA is set to go on a mission to explore one of the most promising places within our solar system that could potentially harbor life. But it's not a planet - it's actually one of Jupiter's 95 moons.
On Tuesday, NASA announced from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that the Europa Clipper is ready to launch to Jupiter's moon, Europa.
"We have the opportunity to go to a new place where we've never explored before in depth," said Dr. Gina DiBraccio, Planetary Science Division Acting Director for NASA.
The Europa Clipper is set to leave in just a matter of weeks, and one of the goals is to determine if the ocean underneath the ice surface could contain ingredients for life.
"What we have is a moon about the size of our moon, yet with we believe an ocean that has twice the water of all the Earth's oceans together. So we're going to explore this ocean world and understand whether the conditions exist for this environment to be habitable," said Project Manager Jordan Evans.
Evidence suggests that Europa's vast ocean could contain essential life ingredients. To find out - the Europa Clipper will travel to Jupiter over the next 5 years and will arrive in 2030.
"We are not landing, that's one of the elegant parts of this mission," said Evans. "We actually orbit Jupiter and every three weeks we fly by into that radiation environment to do the science we want to do."
It will make dozens of flybys without actually landing - using complex radar and technology to collect the necessary data.
"Every mission we've ever been to, we have always uncovered things that we could not have imagined. That is a thing that really most interests me. There's going to be something there," said Deputy Project Scientist Bonnie Buratti.
The spacecraft is set to launch Oct. 10.
