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Mission Animation: Launch

Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Published: May 16, 2022

This animation segment shows NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft leaving Earth.

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This animation shows NASA’s Europa Clipper during a flyby of Europa.
Mission Animation: Europa Flyby
As infrared light enters Europa Clipper’s MISE instrument, mirrors bounce the light into its calcium fluoride (CaF2) lens (flight model shown), which directs the light onto a diffraction grating.
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As infrared light enters Europa Clipper’s MISE instrument, mirrors bounce the light into its calcium fluoride (CaF2) lens (flight model shown), which directs the light onto a diffraction grating.
MISE Dyson CaF2 Lens
Europa Clipper’s SUDA instrument is moved onto a magnetics test bench after a magnetic field background measurement.
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Multiple engineers in white coveralls and masks for contamination protection move the SUDA instrument, a gold instrument, onto a testing table in a clean room.
SUDA Magnetics Test Time Lapse
Europa Clipper's high-gain antenna is installed on Aug. 14, 2023.
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Europa Clipper's high gain antenna, which is taller than the nearby workers, is covered in a protective shroud as it sits on a platform at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Powerful Antenna Installed On Europa Clipper
Thermal imager test for focus and optical quality.
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Two engineers at a computer.
Thermal Imager Test
Europa Clipper rolls into the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy Space Center on May 23, 2024.
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Europa Clipper is rolled into the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility while workers stand nearby.
Europa Clipper Rolls Into KSC's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility
Join team members from NASA’s Europa Clipper mission behind the scenes in a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to learn about the design of this spacecraft that will visit Europa, an ic...
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Join team members from NASA’s Europa Clipper mission behind the scenes in a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to learn about the design of this spacecraft that will visit Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter.
Spacecraft Makers: Introducing Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper's propulsion module is offloaded from its transportation trailer following arrival at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
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Europa Clipper Propulsion Module arrival at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
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This animation segment shows the fairing separation after NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft leaves Earth. 
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An animation showing the payload fairing, which is the nose cone used to protect a spacecraft payload during launch, separating and revealing the Europa Clipper spacecraft after launch.
Mission Animation: Fairing Separation
The Europa Clipper Solar Array Mechanical Simulator is shown installed on the spacecraft’s propulsion module.
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An image showing the Europa Clipper Solar Array Mechanical Simulator installed on the spacecraft’s propulsion module.
Solar Array Mechanical Simulator
In a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, engineers discuss testing for Europa Clipper’s star tracker.
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In a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mana Salami, guidance and control (G&C) systems engineer (front left) and Herrick Chang, cognizant engineer (front right), discuss testing for Europa Clipper’s star tracker. At far left is G&C hardware engineer Gabrielle Massone. At far right sits quality assurance engineer Shaunessy Grant. Chang, Massone, Grant, and James Alexander (not pictured) escorted the hardware from the Sodern company in France to JPL.
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Depicted in this artist's concept against an illustration of a basketball court, Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for a planetary mission.
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A dark gray model of Europa Clipper hovers above a yellowish orange illustration of a basketball court.
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Engineers stand surrounding Europa Clipper’s narrow-angle camera.
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Twelve engineers and technicians dressed in white protective “bunny suits” stand behind and beside to Europa Clipper’s narrow-angle camera (NAC). The NAC is on a platform with rods sticking straight up at the corners of the platform. It’s wrapped in silver-colored insulating material, it has a round base about the size of a tire. The lens is sticking out at an angle and is laced up inside the insulating material. Yellow tape on the floor marks the area around NAC. Equipment and gear sits on tables behind, and to the sides of the workers.
Europa Clipper's Narrow-Angle Camera Delivered to JPL
A JPL engineer holds one of four VHF radar antennas for Europa Clipper’s REASON instrument in its deployed configuration.
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A JPL engineer holds one of four VHF radar antennas for Europa Clipper’s REASON instrument in its deployed configuration.
REASON VHF Radar Antenna
The bake-out fixture is modified in preparation for the transfer and installation of the harness onto the propulsion module structure. The harness is the cabling that connects all of the electronic...
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people wearing clean room attire work on the spacecraft's electrical system
Europa Clipper Propulsion Module
Engineers test one of two high frequency radar antennas for Europa Clipper’s REASON instrument on a hilltop at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Engineers test one of two high frequency radar antennas for Europa Clipper’s REASON instrument on a hilltop at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
REASON HF Radar Antenna
Engineers integrate the avionics vault mass simulator for the Europa Clipper avionics module to the top of the propulsion module.
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Engineers integrate the avionics vault mass simulator for the Europa Clipper avionics module to the top of the propulsion module.
Avionics Mass Simulator
NASA’s Europa Clipper, with all of its instruments installed, is visible in the clean room of High Bay 1. 
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NASA’s Europa Clipper, with all of its instruments installed, is visible in the clean room of High Bay 1 at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Jan. 19.
Europa Clipper Electromagnetic Testing
An engineer inspects the test setup of the optical telescope assembly for the Europa Imaging System narrow angle camera. 
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An engineer inspects the test setup of the optical telescope assembly for the Europa Imaging System narrow angle camera.
Europa Imaging System Optical Telescope Assembly
Could a liquid water ocean beneath the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa have the ingredients to support life? Here's how NASA's mission to Europa would find out.
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Alien Ocean
The Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS) flight instrument in early fall 2021, just before the principal investigator's final optical inspection and installation of its top cover. 
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The Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS) flight instrument in early fall 2021, just before the principal investigator's final optical inspection and installation of its top cover.
Final Inspection of Europa-UVS
An engineer prepares the ion detector for integration to the SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) sensor head at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulde...
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An image showing an engineer prepares the ion detector for integration to the SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) sensor head at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder. SUDA is extremely sensitive and will be able to detect amino acids in concentrations as low as one part per million within water ice.
Dust Analyzer Ion Detector
Europa Clipper’s bowl-shaped high-gain antenna faces down in this image.
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Europa Clipper’s bowl-shaped high-gain antenna faces down in this image.
High-Gain Antenna Communications Dish
Researchers at Langley prepare to move the high gain antenna for  into the Experimental Test Range at the NASA Langley Research Center. 
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Researchers stand next to Europa Clipper’s high gain antenna, which is taller than a person and is painted dark black, as they prepare to move it into a testing facility.
High Gain Antenna Testing
Backup flight-ready ion detectors for the SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) are stored in a dry nitrogen environment to protect these highly sensitive instruments from degradation due to contamination o...
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An image showing that backup flight-ready ion detectors for the SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) are stored in a dry nitrogen environment to protect these highly sensitive instruments from degradation due to contamination or moisture in the air.
Backup Flight-Ready Dust Analyzer Ion Detectors