Falcon Heavy launch vehicle/Europa Clipper Jupiter probe
At 00:06 Beijing time on October 15, 2024 (12:06 EDT on October 14), the Europa Clipper Jupiter probe was launched by the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle at the LC-39A station at the Kennedy Space Center of the United States Space Agency, starting a long journey to the Jupiter system.
After the ignition of the "Falcon Heavy" lifted off, the two core-stage boosters separated in 3 minutes and 12 seconds, the core first stage and the core stage separated in 4 minutes and 11 seconds, and the fairing in 4 minutes and 39 seconds, the core second stage accelerated the detector in stages through two ignitions, and the instrument and arrow separated about 1 hour later, and the probe entered the interplanetary transfer orbit. Ground controllers soon received the probe signal and established two-way communication with the spacecraft at 01:13 through the United States Space Agency's Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. Initial telemetry reports indicate that Europa Clipper is in good health and operating as expected with a successful launch.
Spend a lot of money to find a habitat for life
Europa, Jupiter's fourth largest moon, was launched by Galileo in 1610 along with three other Jupiter moons, then named Europa (the other three were named Europa, Europa, and Ganymede). Europa's equatorial diameter is about 90% of the Moon's, but its internal structure is different. In the 90s of the 20th century, the Galileo probe found evidence that there was a huge saltwater ocean under Europa's ice, with more water than all the oceans on Earth combined. Other evidence was also found that there may be organic compounds and energy sources beneath the surface of Europa.
The United States NASA's Europa Clipper mission, a follow-up to the Galileo mission, will go to the Jupiter system for an in-depth exploration of the Europa moon. The mission has three scientific objectives: to detect the thickness of the Europa ice crust and its interaction with the ocean below; study of its composition; Describe its geological features. The probe will try to determine whether there are life-sustaining conditions in the ocean beneath the Europa ice crust. The Europa Clipper mission was approved in 2015 and will cost about $5.2 billion for the entire mission cycle by the end of the mission in 2034. Since the mission was approved, more than 4,000 people have contributed to the mission.
Build the largest planetary probe in United States space history
Europa Clipper is a large Jupiter probe led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) managed by the California Institute of Technology in Southern California for the United States Space Agency, in collaboration with the Johns · Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for the United States Space Agency's Science Mission Agency (SMD). The rover body was designed by the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the United States Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland, the United States Space Agency Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. United States NASA's Marshall Planetary Mission Planning Office (PMPO) is responsible for the program management of the Europa Clipper mission. The launch of the probe is managed by the United States Space Agency's Launch Services Program (LSP) at the Kennedy Space Center.
"Europa Clipper" Jupiter probe
The main body of the "Europa Clipper" consists of three modules: the aerospace electronic equipment protective cover module (AVIONICS Vault), the radio frequency module, and the propulsion module. The power subsystem of the 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 probe has a height of 5 meters, a solar wing spread span of more than 30.5 meters (a standard basketball court is 28 meters long), a dry mass of 3,241 kilograms, an engine propellant mass of 2,752.2 kilograms, and a launch mass of about 5,900 kilograms. The Europa Clipper is the largest planetary probe ever built in the United States.
Europa Clipper Jupiter probe (without solar wings)
该探测器搭载了9台科学仪器：欧罗巴成像系统（Europa Imaging System，EIS)、欧罗巴热发射成像系统（Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System，E-THEMIS)、欧罗巴紫外光谱仪（Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph，Europa-UVS)、欧罗巴地图成像光谱仪（Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa，MISE)、欧罗巴快船磁强计（Europa Clipper Magnetometer，ECM)、磁测深等离子体仪器（Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding，PIMS)、欧罗巴评估和探测雷达：海洋到近表面（Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface，REASON)、行星探测质谱仪（MAss Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration，MASPEX)、 表面粉尘分析仪（SUrface Dust Analyzer，SUDA)。 同时，还搭载了用于重力实验的射频硬件（Radio-frequency hardware）。
The implementation phase of the mandate lasts up to 10 years
In February 2025, the Europa Clipper will fly by Mars at an altitude of 500 to 1,000 kilometers, and in December 2026, the probe will fly by the Earth at an altitude of 3,200 kilometers. The probe will reach Jupiter in April 2030, and the entire transfer flight will take up to 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. In 2031, the probe will carry out a dedicated scientific exploration of Europa, flying 49 times at a minimum altitude of 25 kilometers from the surface of Europa, each time flying over a different location to scan nearly the entire surface of the satellite. The Europa Clipper exploration phase will last four years, with the mission scheduled to deorbit and hit the surface of Europa in September 2034.
Heavy Falcon capacity is insufficient
The Falcon Heavy is a large cryogenic liquid launch vehicle, which adopts a two-stage half-series parallel configuration, and a three-core parallel structure for the take-off stage. The arrow is 70 meters high, the diameter of the core stage and core stage booster are 3.66 meters, the take-off mass is about 1,421 tons, the take-off thrust is about 2,268 tons, and its standard (non-recovery) geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) capacity is 26.7 tons. The "Falcon Heavy" uses a new core B1090.1 and two multiplexing boosters B1064.6 and B1065.6, and the three core first-stage modules are all exhausted to provide the detector with as much kinetic energy as possible.
Falcon Heavy launch vehicle/Europa Clipper Jupiter probe
Among the world's active launch vehicles, the Falcon Heavy is second only to the Space Launch System (SLS) in terms of its deep space capacity. The average distance from the Earth to Jupiter is about 770 million kilometers, and even the Falcon Heavy capacity cannot send a 6-ton probe directly into a ground-wood transfer orbit, but only an interplanetary transfer orbit around Mars.
This mission is the second launch of the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle in 2024, the 18th launch from the Kennedy Space Center, the 113th launch of the United States and the 185th launch in the world.
Author: Mulan Xingzhou