Europa Clipper Pre-Launch Overview

<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
<v Speaker 1>with our soothing Bedtime Astronomy podcast. Each episode offers a
<v Speaker 1>gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond. Perfect for
<v Speaker 1>unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries
<v Speaker 1>of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful
<v Speaker 1>slumber under the night sky. Europa Clipper pre launch overview
<v Speaker 1>the first NASA spacecraft dedicated to studying an ocean world
<v Speaker 1>beyond Earth. Europa Clipper aims to find out whether the
<v Speaker 1>ice incased Moon Europa could be habitable. NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft,
<v Speaker 1>the largest the agency has ever built for a planetary mission,
<v Speaker 1>will travel one point eight billion miles two point nine
<v Speaker 1>billion kilometers from the agency's Kennedy Space Center and Florida
<v Speaker 1>to Europa, an intriguing icy moon of Jupiter. The spacecraft's
<v Speaker 1>launch period opens Thursday, October tenth. Data from previous NASA
<v Speaker 1>missions has provided scientists with strong evidence that an enormous
<v Speaker 1>salty ocean lies underneath the frozen surface of the Moon.
<v Speaker 1>Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter and conduct forty nine close
<v Speaker 1>flybys of the Moon to gather data needed to determine
<v Speaker 1>whether there are places below its thick frozen crust that
<v Speaker 1>could support life. Europa is one of the most promising
<v Speaker 1>places to look for currently habitable conditions beyond Earth. There's
<v Speaker 1>scientific evidence that the ingredients for life, water, the right chemistry,
<v Speaker 1>and energy may exist on Europa right now. This mission
<v Speaker 1>will gather the information scientists need to find out for sure.
<v Speaker 1>The Moon may hold an internal ocean with twice the
<v Speaker 1>water of Earth's oceans combined, and it may also host
<v Speaker 1>organic compounds and energy sources under its surface. If the
<v Speaker 1>mission determines that Europa is habitable, it would mean there
<v Speaker 1>may be more habitable worlds in our Solar system and
<v Speaker 1>beyond than we have imagined. The spacecraft will fly through
<v Speaker 1>one of the most punishing radiation environments in our solar system,
<v Speaker 1>second only to the Sun's. Jupiter is surrounded by a
<v Speaker 1>gigantic magnetic field twenty thousand times stronger than Earth's. As
<v Speaker 1>the field spins, it captures and accelerates charged particles, creating
<v Speaker 1>radiation that can damage spacecraft. Mission engineers designed a spacecraft
<v Speaker 1>fault to shield sensitive electronics from radiation, and they plot
<v Speaker 1>it orbits that will will limit the time Europa Clipper
<v Speaker 1>spends in most radiation heavy areas around Jupiter. Europa Clipper
<v Speaker 1>will orbit Jupiter studying Europa while flying by the Moon
<v Speaker 1>dozens of times. The spacecraft will make looping orbits around
<v Speaker 1>Jupiter that bring it close to Europa for forty nine
<v Speaker 1>science dedicated flybys. On each orbit, the spacecraft will spend
<v Speaker 1>less than a day in Jupiter's dangerous radiation zone near
<v Speaker 1>Europa before zipping back out. Two to three weeks later,
<v Speaker 1>it will repeat the process making another flyby. Europa Clipper
<v Speaker 1>features NASA's most sophisticated suite of science instruments yet. To
<v Speaker 1>determine whether Europa is habitable, Europa Clipper must assess the
<v Speaker 1>Moon's interior, composition and geology. The spacecraft carries nine science
<v Speaker 1>instruments and a gravity experiment that uses the telecommunication system
<v Speaker 1>in order to obtain the best science during each flyby.
<v Speaker 1>All the science instruments will operate simultaneously on every pass.
<v Speaker 1>Scientists will then layer the data together to paint a
<v Speaker 1>full picture of the Moon with antennas and solar arrays
<v Speaker 1>fully deployed. Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has
<v Speaker 1>ever developed. For a planetary mission. The spacecraft extends one
<v Speaker 1>hundred feet thirty point five meters from one end to
<v Speaker 1>the other in about fifty eight feet seventeen point six
<v Speaker 1>meters across. That's bigger than a basketball court, thanks in
<v Speaker 1>large part to the solar arrays, which need to be
<v Speaker 1>huge so they can collect enough sunlight while near Jupiter
<v Speaker 1>to power the instruments, electronics, and other subsystems. Jupiter is,
<v Speaker 1>on average some four hundred and eighty million miles about
<v Speaker 1>seven hundred and seventy million kilometers from Earth. Both planets
<v Speaker 1>are in motion, and a spacecraft can carry only a
<v Speaker 1>limited amount of fuel. Mission planners are sending Europa Clipper
<v Speaker 1>past Mars and then Earth, using the planet's gravity as
<v Speaker 1>a slingshot to add speed to the spacecraft's track. After
<v Speaker 1>journeying about one point eight billion miles two point nine
<v Speaker 1>billion kilometers over five point five years, the spacecraft will
<v Speaker 1>fire its engines to enter orbit around Jupiter in twenty
<v Speaker 1>thirty institutions across the U dot S in Europe have
<v Speaker 1>contributed to Europa Clipper. Currently, one thousand people work on
<v Speaker 1>the mission, including more than two hundred and twenty scientists
<v Speaker 1>from both the Udads and Europe. Since the mission was
<v Speaker 1>officially approved in twenty fifteen, more than four thousand people
<v Speaker 1>have contributed to Europa Clipper, including teams who work for
<v Speaker 1>contractors and subcontractors. More than two point six million of
<v Speaker 1>US are riding along with the spacecraft, bringing greetings from
<v Speaker 1>one water world to another, as part of a mission
<v Speaker 1>campaign called Message in a Bottle. The spacecraft is carrying
<v Speaker 1>a poem by Eudades poet laureate adaly mone Co, signed
<v Speaker 1>by millions of people from nearly every country in the world.
<v Speaker 1>Their names have been stenciled onto a microchip attached to
<v Speaker 1>a tannel metal plate that seals the spacecraft's electronics fault.
<v Speaker 1>The plate also features waveforms of people saying the word
<v Speaker 1>water in over one hundred spoken languages. Europa Clipper's three
<v Speaker 1>main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the
<v Speaker 1>Moon's icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below,
<v Speaker 1>to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The
<v Speaker 1>mission's detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand
<v Speaker 1>the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planets. To
<v Speaker 1>do the same