NASA's Europa Clipper leaves for Jupiter's moon atop Falcon Heavy

Liftoff after dodging hurricanes and paranoia scrub

SpaceX has sent NASA's Europa Clipper on its mission to the Jupiter moon atop its Falcon Heavy rocket.

It was the sixth and final flight for the first stage side boosters, which have been used in US Space Force missions and the launch of the NASA Psyche mission a year ago. This time around, the mission called for the rocket's maximum performance, meaning that no recovery attempt was made.

During a pre-launch media briefing, Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX director of NASA's Science Missions, said: "The mission requires the maximum performance, so we won't be recovering the boosters."

She added: "I don't know about you guys, but I can't think of a better mission to sacrifice boosters for, when we might have an opportunity to discover life in our own solar system. How cool is that?"

The plan had been to launch the mission on October 10, but the approach of Hurricane Milton put paid to that. A subsequent date was set for October 13, but SpaceX opted to push it back in what Scheiman called a "paranoia scrub." Tim Dunn, launch director for NASA's Launch Services Program, added that SpaceX notified NASA of a potential quality control issue on Thursday, and the agency agreed it was worth looking into.

"We're in very good shape, and we do appreciate SpaceX's paranoia," he said.

As it turned out, the Falcon Heavy left the launchpad without incident, other than a temperature anomaly that was resolved before liftoff, and the Europa Clipper was deployed just over an hour into the flight. A gravity-assist swing-by of Mars will take place on March 1, 2025, followed by another of Earth in December 2026. The mission will then go into a quiet cruise period until the Europa Clipper arrives at the Jupiter system on April 11, 2030.

Upcoming missions for the Falcon 9 launcher include three commercial launches and NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

While not a factor in the launch of the Falcon Heavy, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also cleared SpaceX to resume regular Falcon 9 operations last week. The regulator said in a statement: "The FAA notified SpaceX on October 11 that the Falcon 9 vehicle is authorized to return to regular flight operations. The FAA reviewed and accepted the SpaceX-led investigation findings and corrective actions for the mishap that occurred with the Crew-9 mission (September 28).

"Also on October 11, FAA closed the SpaceX-led investigations for the Falcon 9 mishaps that occurred with the Starlink 9-3 (July 11) and Starlink 8-6 (August 28) missions." ®