The American company SpaceX has received a contract from NASA to launch the Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter using the Falcon Heavy super-heavy rocket, according to ArsTechnica.
The launch services are estimated at $ 178 million. The Europa Clipper is scheduled to start in October 2024. The publication notes that the use of SpaceX services will allow NASA to save about $ 2 billion, which was estimated the cost of launching a mission using the advanced super-heavy rocket Space Launch System (SLS), created by Boeing.
The Europa Clipper has a budget of $ 4.25 billion. The main task of the mission is to study the Jupiterian satellite Europa, in whose subglacial ocean life is possible. To do this, the Europa Clipper must make 44 flights over this satellite. According to ArsTechnica, the mission to Europe is one of the most important for NASA in the current decade.
In February, Oleg Korablev, Deputy Director of the Institute of Space Research (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, recalled that in 2000-2010s, a Russian-European-American mission was being worked out, which involved sending to Europe, one of the satellites of Jupiter , in whose subglacial ocean life is possible, the interplanetary space station Europa Jupiter System Mission.
In May 2016, NASA, citing a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters by scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, reported that the chemical balance of Europa's subglacial reservoir resembles that of Earth's ocean.
Europa is one of the main candidates for the source of extraterrestrial life in the solar system. Under the icy surface of Europa, there may be an under-ice ocean or a layer of viscous ice. Salt water under the surface of Jupiter's moon may be twice as large as in the oceans on Earth. The Hubble telescope recorded water geysers in Europe in 2012. On Earth, similar conditions are observed, for example, in the hydrothermal fields of the Lost City of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
