The agency\u2019s largest interplanetary probe tested its radar during a Mars flyby. The results include a detailed image and bode well for the mission at Jupiter\u2019s moon Europa.<\/p>\n
As it soared past Mars in March, NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper conducted a critical radar test that had been impossible to accomplish on Earth. Now that mission scientists have studied the full stream of data, they can declare success: The radar performed just as expected, bouncing and receiving signals off the region around Mars\u2019 equator without a hitch.<\/p>\n
Called REASON<\/a> (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface), the radar instrument will \u201csee\u201d into Europa\u2019s icy shell, which may have pockets of water inside. The radar may even be able to detect the ocean beneath the shell of Jupiter\u2019s fourth-largest moon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got everything out of the flyby that we dreamed,\u201d said Don Blankenship, principal investigator of the radar instrument, of the University of Texas at Austin. \u201cThe goal was to determine the radar\u2019s readiness for the Europa mission, and it worked. Every part of the instrument proved itself to do exactly what we intended.\u201d<\/p>\n The radar will help scientists understand how the ice may capture materials from the ocean and transfer them to the surface of the moon. Above ground, the instrument will help to study elements of Europa\u2019s topography, such as ridges, so scientists can examine how they relate to features that REASON images beneath the surface.<\/p>\n Europa Clipper has an unusual radar setup for an interplanetary spacecraft: REASON uses two pairs of slender antennas that jut out from the solar arrays, spanning a distance of about 58 feet (17.6 meters). Those arrays themselves are huge \u2014 from tip to tip, the size of a basketball court \u2014 so they can catch as much light as possible at Europa, which gets about 1\/25th the sunlight as Earth.<\/p>\n The instrument team conducted all the testing that was possible prior to the spacecraft\u2019s launch from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center<\/a> in Florida on Oct. 14, 2024. During development, engineers at the agency\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California even took the work outdoors, using open-air towers on a plateau above JPL to stretch out and test engineering models<\/a> of the instrument\u2019s spindly high-frequency and more compact very-high-frequency antennas.<\/p>\n But once the actual flight hardware was built, it needed to be kept sterile and could be tested only in an enclosed area. Engineers used the giant High Bay 1 clean room<\/a> at JPL, where the spacecraft was assembled, to test the instrument piece by piece. To test the \u201cecho,\u201d or the bounceback of REASON\u2019s signals, however, they\u2019d have needed a chamber about 250 feet (76 meters) long \u2014 nearly three-quarters the length of a football field.<\/p>\n The mission\u2019s primary goal in flying by Mars on March 1, less than five months after launch, was to use the planet\u2019s gravitational pull to reshape the spacecraft\u2019s trajectory<\/a>. But it also presented opportunities to calibrate the spacecraft\u2019s infrared camera<\/a> and perform a dry run of the radar instrument over terrain NASA scientists have been studying for decades.<\/p>\n As Europa Clipper zipped by the volcanic plains of the Red Planet \u2014 starting at 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) down to 550 miles (884 kilometers) above the surface \u2014 REASON sent and received radio waves for about 40 minutes. In comparison, at Europa the instrument will operate as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n All told, engineers were able to collect 60 gigabytes of rich data from the instrument. Almost immediately, they could tell REASON was working well. The flight team scheduled the full dataset to download, starting in mid-May. Scientists relished the opportunity over the next couple of months to examine the information in detail and compare notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe engineers were excited that their test worked so perfectly,\u201d said JPL\u2019s Trina Ray, Europa Clipper deputy science manager. \u201cAll of us who had worked so hard to make this test happen \u2014 and the scientists seeing the data for the first time \u2014 were ecstatic, saying, \u2018Oh, look at this! Oh, look at that!\u2019 Now, the science team is getting a head start on learning how to process the data and understand the instrument\u2019s behavior compared to models. They are exercising those muscles just like they will out at Europa.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Europa Clipper\u2019s total journey to reach the icy moon will be about 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) and includes one more gravity assist \u2014 using Earth \u2014 in 2026. The spacecraft is currently about 280 million miles (450 million kilometers) from Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n Europa Clipper\u2019s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon\u2019s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission\u2019s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.<\/p>\n Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA\u2019s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft. The REASON radar investigation is led by the University of Texas at Austin.<\/p>\n Find more information about Europa Clipper here:<\/p>\n https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/europa-clipper\/<\/a><\/p>\n Gretchen McCartney Karen Fox \/ Molly Wasser 2025-097<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The agency\u2019s largest interplanetary probe tested its radar during a Mars flyby. The results include a detailed image…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[22680,8497,9270,1815,22681,90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-39226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-europa","9":"tag-europa-clipper","10":"tag-jet-propulsion-laboratory","11":"tag-jupiter","12":"tag-jupiter-moons","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov<\/a> \/ molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov<\/a>t<\/p>\n