How Do You Deliver a 7,000-Pound Spacecraft?

How was NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft packed and shipped from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to Kennedy Space Center in Florida?

The mission’s lead engineer Kobie Boykins explains how the team made sure the 7,000-pound spacecraft would be safe while it traveled first on a semitruck then flew to Florida on a United States Air Force C-17 Globemaster III.

The Europa Clipper team also shipped enough ground support equipment to fill 14 semitrailers. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will investigate Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, which — with its subsurface ocean — is one of the most promising places in our solar system to find environments capable of supporting life.

The spacecraft is expected to launch in October 2024 from Kennedy and arrive at the Jupiter system in 2030.