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Europa Clipper's Developmental Test Model

A shiny metal cylinder 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide and 16 feet (5 meters) tall stands erect on the flatbed of a truck.
Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Published: May 17, 2022

Europa Clipper's developmental test model (DTM) sits on a truck at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory en route to a static test chamber. The DTM is identical to flight hardware of Europa Clipper's propulsion module and electronics vault — same size, materials, fasteners, and specifications. By performing structural testing on an identical copy of Europa Clipper, engineers can ensure the spacecraft's structure integrity without risk of damaging or putting unnecessary fatigue on the actual spacecraft.

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