JPL’s Europa Clipper, Being Built to Explore Moon of Jupiter, Clears ‘Critical Design Review’

A spacecraft being built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and destined to explore the oceanic and potential habitable Jovian moon of Europa has cleared a major milestone in passing its NASA “Critical Design Review,” JPL announced Thursday.

Europa Clipper is on schedule to launch in 2024, JPL said in a written statement.

“During the review, experts examined the detailed design of the spacecraft to ensure that it is ready to complete construction,” according to the statement. “The mission is now able to complete hardware fabrication and testing, and move toward the assembly and testing of the spacecraft and its payload of sophisticated science instruments.”

JPL is leading the project’s development, in partnership with NASA’s Applied Physics Laboratory. NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office is managing the mission.

Europa Clipper Project Manager Jan Chodas of JPL said her team was encouraged by the achievement.

“We showed that our project system design is strong,” Chodas said. “Our plans for completing the development and integration of the individual pieces hold together, and the system as a whole will function as designed to gather the science measurements we need to explore the potential habitability of Europa.”

Europa Clipper “will use multiple flybys of the moon to investigate the habitability of this ocean world,” the statement said.

“With an internal global ocean twice the size of Earth’s oceans combined, Jupiter’s moon Europa carries the potential for conditions suitable for life,” the statement continued. “But the frigid temperatures and the nonstop pummeling of the surface from Jupiter’s radiation make it a tricky target to explore. Mission engineers and scientists must design a spacecraft hardy enough to withstand the radiation yet sensitive enough to gather the science needed to investigate Europa’s environment.”

As it studies the moon from orbit, Clipper will measure its ocean, map its surface, analyze the moon’s geology and search for plumes of water vapor that scientists believe may vent from Europa’s icy crust, according to JPL.

As the final assembly draws closer, anticipation is building, said Europa Clipper Deputy Project Manager Jordan Evans of JPL.

“It’s a very exciting time for the team, seeing the fruits of their work that will be orbiting Jupiter in a few years,” said Evans. “Even in the face of COVID-19, the team is firing on all cylinders. Using safe-at-work protocols, they’re performing the necessary work on the hardware while the rest of the team is getting their job done at home.”

Just as exciting as the mission itself is the potential new knowledge scientists hope to acquire, said Europa Clipper Project Scientist Robert Pappalardo.

“We’re doing work that a decade from now will change how we think about the diversity of worlds in the outer solar system – and about where life might be able to exist right now, not in the distant past,” he said.

More information on the Europa Clipper Mission can be found online at Europa.nasa.gov.