WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - NASA has confirmed that Europa Clipper spacecraft's solar arrays have been fully deployed in orbit around Jupiter.
This means that the spacecraft now has a reliable source of power for the rest of its journey to Jupiter and tour of the Jovian system.
Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California have announced that the process began with the cutting of hold-downs keeping the solar arrays folded against the sides of the spacecraft and then the unfolding of one wing at a time. With each wing measuring 46 and-a-half-feet long, Europa Clipper's solar arrays are the biggest NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission.
On Monday, NASA's Europa Clipper missioN embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter to investigate if its moon Europa, with an enormous subsurface ocean, has conditions to support life.
The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles on a trajectory that will leverage the power of gravity assists, first to Mars in four months and then back to Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026. After it begins orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 time
The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa is about the size of the Moon, but its interior is different. Information from NASA's Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa's ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.
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