NASA and SpaceX Launch Europa Clipper

NASA and SpaceX began Europa Clipper’s journey to Jupiter and its moon Europa aboard a Falcon Heavy this afternoon from Kennedy Space Center. Launch was at 12:06 PM EDT under blue skies and pleasant temperatures.

Europa Clipper now begins a roughly six-year 1.8 million mile journey to the Jovian system which will include two gravity assists and flybys around the Sun before it reaches its destination. Once it arrives in its orbit around Jupiter, Europa Clipper will perform nearly fifty flybys of Europa, where its instruments will scan the Jovian moon’s oceans for potential signs of life. To date, this is the largest planetary probe NASA has ever flown, and in NASA’s estimation, Europa Clipper would cover an entire regulation basketball court.

At 1:11 PM EDT, SpaceX confirmed the successful deployment of Europa Clipper, with the probe now heading towards Mars to begin its looping journey through the solar system.

Europa Clipper Has A Very Long Journey Ahead

Europa Clipper now begins a roughly six-year 1.8 billion mile journey to the Jovian system which will include two gravity assists and flybys around the Sun before it reaches its destination.

Once it arrives in its orbit around Jupiter, Europa Clipper will perform nearly fifty flybys of Europa, where its instruments will scan the Jovian moon’s oceans for potential signs of life. To date, this is the largest planetary probe NASA has ever flown, and in NASA’s estimation, Europa Clipper would cover an entire regulation basketball court.

By The Numbers

Today’s launch was the eleventh Falcon Heavy launch, all from LC-39A. To date, each mission has been successful.

Today’s launch was the last Falcon Heavy slated to fly for this year and some months into 2025: the heavy lifter has the VIPER lunar rover, the NASA Lunar Gateway PPE & HALO mission along with two Space Force missions on the dock for next year, but this far in advance it is impossible to know when payloads will be ready.

This was the sixth and final flight for the two side-boosters, B1064 and B1065, which one year ago today supported NASA’s Psyche mission, as well as three missions for the US Space Force and one for Hughes Electronics.

Overall, it was the 184th orbital (and beyond) launch from historic Launch Complex 39A.

Next Launch

Space fans in Florida won’t have to wait long for the next launch. Now that the FAA has cleared Falcon 9 to resume commercial Falcon family launches, SpaceX plans to resume Starlink launches from Space Launch Complex 40 overnight tonight when it launches Starlink 10-10. The launch window opens at 1:34 AM EDT and closes at 5:26 AM the same day.