Liftoff: Europa Clipper on its long voyage to Jupiter’s moon Europa
Prof. Frank Postberg, Dr. Fabian Klenner and Dr. Maryse Napoleoni at the Kennedy Space center.
Launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket, with the Europa Clipper spacecraft onboard.
Image Credit: NASA
News from Oct 21, 2024
On Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, the Europa Clipper spacecraft from NASA was launched at 6:06 p.m. CEST aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft will travel 2.9 billion km to reach Jupiter’s moon Europa in April 2030. It will orbit Jupiter and conduct 49 close flybys of Europa. There is strong evidence Europa has a saltwater ocean beneath its icy surface, which makes it a fascinating mission target. Europa Clipper will use nine instruments to investigate the ocean world and to understand if this place is a habitable environment that could potentially support life.
The SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA), is one of the nine instruments onboard and will allow us to better understand the composition of Europa’s surface ice and subsurface ocean. Several members of the planetology working group are affiliated to this instruments: Prof. Frank Postberg (co-investigator of SUDA), Prof. Jürgen Schmidt, Dr. Maryse Napoleoni, Dr. Nozair Khawaja and Dr. Pietro Matteoni. SUDA is an impact ionization mass spectrometer that will analyze the chemical composition of small ice grains ejected from Europa’s surface. The grains’ speed and direction will be used to back-track their origin and thus map the surface composition. It might also analyze material directly derived from the subsurface ocean. Several laboratory experiments performed at FU Berlin have shown that SUDA will be capable of detecting salts and organic material in the ice grains. It could even detect traces of microbial life, if such signatures were present on Europa.