Europa, if you were wondering. It's a moon of Jupiter that has liquid water oceans covered by ice. It's the best candidate to find extraterrestrial life in our solar system. We're launching an orbiter that won't actually find life, but it will tell us a lot about the planet and what sort of payload we would need to send to look for life.
if you were wondering
You mean you can't tell our solar system's ice moons apart from a photo? :P
I mean I know reading the actual article is frowned upon since slashdot days but I wouldn't completely exclude it as a possible source of information.
Good thing Europa Clipper isn't landing then.
I am most excited for the launch of Europa Clipper. Then comes the long wait during the trip to Jupiter...
2024 to 2030 isn't that long when we're talking current tech spacecraft transits.
New Horizons we had to wait from 2006 to 2015 for the first of those beautiful images back.
I suppose so. Something like NERVA-style kickstage could speed things up nicely, though.
I'm really looking forward to the new class of heavy lift launchers enabling probes with more delta V to speed up these transits.
Me too!
Taking a more direct path with a more powerful rocket, it took the Voyager probes just a year and a half to get there. Of course, they also zoomed right past towards Saturn and beyond.
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