The first flight of the Falcon Heavy
According to the latest plan, at 00:06 Beijing time on October 15, 2024 (12:06 EDT on the 14th), at the LC-39A station of the Kennedy Space Center in United States, the "Europa Clipper" Jupiter probe will be launched by the "Falcon Heavy" launch vehicle, and the probe will first enter the interplanetary transfer orbit and eventually enter the orbit around Jupiter.
A blockbuster deep space mission costing $5.2 billion
United States NASA's Europa Clipper mission will travel to Jupiter for the exploration of Jupiter's moon Europa. The mission's three main scientific objectives include determining the thickness of the Europa ice crust and its interaction with the ocean below; study of its composition; Describe its geological features. The spacecraft will try to determine whether the ocean beneath the ice crust of Europa may be suitable for life. The Europa Clipper mission was approved in 2015 and will cost about $5.2 billion by the end of the mission.
"欧罗巴快船"(Europa Clipper)探测器
Europa Clipper is a large Jupiter probe developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in collaboration with the Johns · Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), and the Planetary Missions Program Office of the United States National Space Administration (NASA) is responsible for the program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
"Europa Clipper" solar wing
The Europa Clipper probe is equipped with 24 engines, the communication subsystem is equipped with a 3-meter diameter high-gain antenna (HGA), and the power subsystem is equipped with a pair of solar wings composed of five solar panels each. The height of the probe is 5 meters, the wingspan of the solar wing is more than 30.5 meters, and the launch mass of the whole instrument is about 6,000 kilograms. The Europa Clipper is the largest planetary probe in United States space history.
"欧罗巴快船"(Europa Clipper)探测器
The detector is equipped with 9 scientific instruments, namely Europa Imaging System (EIS), Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS), Europa Ultraviolet Spectrometer (Europa-UVS), Europa Map Imaging Spectrometer (MISE), Europa Clipper Magnetometer (ECM), Magnetic Bathymetry Plasma Instrument (PIMS), Europa Assessment and Detection Radar: Ocean to Near Surface (REASON), Planetary Exploration Mass Spectrometer (MASPEX), Surface Dust Analyzer (SUDA). It is also equipped with one set of radio-frequency hardware for gravity experiments.
According to the mission timeline, Europa Clipper plans to fly by Mars at an altitude of 500 to 1,000 kilometers in February 2025, and then fly by Earth at an altitude of 3,200 kilometers in December 2026, using the gravitational pull of two planets to carry out "gravity assists" to reach the required speed to fly to Jupiter. The Europa Clipper is scheduled to reach Jupiter in April 2030, and the entire transfer flight will take 5.5 years and cover a distance of 2.9 billion kilometers.
The Europa Clipper is scheduled to orbit in a large elliptical orbit around Jupiter with a period of 21 days. The probe will fly 49 times at a minimum altitude of 25 kilometers from the surface of Europa, each time flying over a different location to scan almost the entire satellite. The Europa Clipper exploration phase will last four years, ending in September 2034 with a deorbit impact on the surface of Europa. From launch to the end of the mission, the entire mission implementation phase will last up to 10 years.
The tonnage of the detector is too large, and the heavy falcon needs to run out of arrows
The mission payload was originally planned to be launched using the Space Launch System (SLS) of the Heavy launch vehicle, but was later launched by the Falcon Heavy due to significant delays in the development of the rocket.
The "Falcon Heavy" is a large cryogenic liquid launch vehicle, which adopts a two-stage and a half-series parallel configuration, with the take-off core and two core module boosters tied side by side (three-core parallel). The arrow is 70 meters high, with a diameter of 3.66 meters for both the core and core stage boosters, a take-off mass of about 1,421 tons, and a standard geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) capacity of 26.7 tons. The Falcon Heavy uses the new core B1090.1 with two multiplexed boosters, B1064.6 and B1065.6. Due to the large demand for kinetic energy in this launch mission, all three core modules of the take-off stage will be exhausted.
The average distance from the Earth to Jupiter reaches about 770 million kilometers, far greater than the average distance from the Earth to Mars of 225 million kilometers, and the capacity of the "Heavy Falcon" is not enough to send the probe weighing 6 tons directly to the earth-wood transfer orbit, and can only send the probe into the interplanetary transfer orbit around Mars.
This launch mission will be the 11th launch of the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle and the third deep space launch of the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle, and it will also be the largest deep space launch mission of the Falcon Heavy rocket.
Author: Mulan Xingzhou