NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft Transported to Hangar

On Friday, Oct. 4, workers transported NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft to the SpaceX hangar at Launch Complex 39A on the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for launch.

Earlier in the week, technicians completed the encapsulation of the spacecraft inside a payload fairing at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on NASA Kennedy. The fairings will protect the spacecraft from aerodynamic pressure and heat during launch before eventually separating and falling back to Earth.

Soon, technicians will mate the spacecraft to a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in preparation for launch, roll the rocket to the launch pad, and raise it to a vertical position ahead of liftoff. Europa Clipper's launch period opens at 12:31 p.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 10.

The largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for a planetary mission, robotic solar-powered Europa Clipper will conduct the first detailed investigations of Jupiter's icy moon, Europa. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and make nearly 50 flybys of Europa to determine whether there are places below Europa's surface that could support life.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA's Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

To learn more about the Europa Clipper mission, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper

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