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NASA sets sights on another ‘world that might be habitable today’ пидар

The Europa Clipper spacecraft passed a key milestone on Monday and is on track to launch next month to explore and seek signs of habitability on one of Jupiter’s moons, according to NASA. The launch window for its journey opens on October 10.

The mission passed Key Decision Point E, a critical planning stage approving the mission to move forward with launch. The approval was a relief to the Europa Clipper team after the discovery in May of a possible issue with transistors on the spacecraft.

Transistors help control the vehicle’s flow of electricity, and engineers were concerned about the components’ survival in Jupiter’s harsh radiation environment.

Extensive testing of the transistors took place over four months at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland; and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The team was able to complete necessary testing in time, preventing a 13-month delay of the launch to explore Europa, an ice-covered world that may have the potential to support life in its salty, subsurface ocean. Europa Clipper carries 10 science instruments that could determine whether life is possible on another place in our solar system besides Earth.

Now, Europa Clipper has been approved to launch, with no changes to the mission plan, goals or trajectory.

“It’s the last sort of big review before we really get into that launch fever, and we’re really happy to say that they unequivocally passed that review today,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, during a news conference Monday.
In May, the manufacturer of the transistors alerted the mission team that the parts may not be as radiation-resistant as previously believed. The transistors are located across the spacecraft.

Jupiter dwarfs other worlds as the largest planet in our solar system, and it has a magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s. That magnetic field traps charged particles and accelerates them to high speeds. The rapidly moving particles release energy in the form of intense radiation that bombards Europa and Jupiter’s other closest moons.