NASA Launches Europa Clipper to Explore an Ocean Moon’s Habitability

The spacecraft lifted off Monday on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, embarking on a nearly six-year journey to Jupiter.

Europa Clipper, the biggest interplanetary spacecraft that NASA has ever built, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Monday afternoon.

The mission will tackle one of biology’s core questions: Can life exist anywhere else in our solar system?

The spacecraft’s destination is Europa, a moon of Jupiter, where water sloshes beneath a shell of ice that could be more than 10 miles thick. Such ocean worlds are fairly common in the outer solar system. That has created speculation: Could there be life swimming in any of those oceans?

The $5.2 billion Europa Clipper mission is the first by NASA devoted to filling in the blanks to the question of habitability on these ocean worlds.

“I think Europa is certainly the most likely place for life beyond Earth in our solar system,” said Robert Pappalardo, the project scientist for Europa Clipper. “And that’s because it is the most likely to have the ingredients for life in abundance and for there to be enough time for life to get going.”

At liftoff, Europa Clipper weighed about 12,500 pounds, nearly half of which was propellant. After the two solar panels unfurled, the spacecraft stretched more than 100 feet across — a bit longer than a basketball court.