NASA’s Europa Clipper Equipped with Massive Solar Arrays for Jupiter Mission
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 30, 2024
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, the largest ever built for planetary exploration, has been fitted with a set of gigantic solar arrays at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. These arrays, each measuring approximately 46.5 feet (14.2 meters) in length and 13.5 feet (4.1 meters) in height, are the largest ever developed by NASA for a planetary mission. Their size is crucial to harness the maximum amount of sunlight as the spacecraft investigates Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, located five times farther from the Sun than Earth.
Folded and secured for launch, the arrays will, when deployed in space, expand Europa Clipper to more than 100 feet (30.5 meters) across – wider than a professional basketball court. Due to their immense size, the arrays were opened one at a time in the clean room of Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where the spacecraft is being prepared for its launch, scheduled to begin on October 10.
Navigating Deep Space
As the spacecraft undergoes final preparations, engineers are also evaluating the radiation resistance of its transistors. The spacecraft’s journey to the Jupiter system will take over five years, with arrival expected in 2030. Once there, Europa Clipper will conduct multiple flybys of Europa, using its scientific instruments to determine whether the ocean beneath the moon’s ice shell could support life.
The spacecraft is designed to operate in an area of the solar system that receives only 3% to 4% of the sunlight Earth gets. Each solar array, composed of five panels, was developed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland and Airbus in the Netherlands. These panels are more sensitive than typical residential solar arrays and will efficiently convert the limited sunlight into power.
At Jupiter, the arrays will collectively generate about 700 watts of electricity, enough to power a small microwave oven or coffee maker. This energy will be stored in the spacecraft’s batteries to run its electronics, scientific instruments, communications gear, computer systems, and propulsion system, which includes 24 engines.
The arrays must function in extremely cold conditions, with temperatures dropping to minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 240 degrees Celsius) in Jupiter’s shadow. To ensure they can withstand these extremes, the panels were tested in a cryogenic chamber at the Liege Space Center in Belgium.
“The spacecraft is cozy. It has heaters and an active thermal loop, which keep it in a much more normal temperature range,” explained Taejoo Lee, the solar array product delivery manager at APL. “But the solar arrays are exposed to the vacuum of space without any heaters. They’re completely passive, so whatever the environment is, those are the temperatures they get.”
About 90 minutes after launch, the arrays will unfold from their compact position over a period of approximately 40 minutes. Two weeks later, six antennas attached to the arrays will also deploy. These antennas, which are part of the radar instrument, will extend to 57.7 feet (17.6 meters) and will be used to search for water within and beneath Europa’s thick ice shell.
“At the beginning of the project, we really thought it would be nearly impossible to develop a solar array strong enough to hold these gigantic antennas,” Lee commented. “It was difficult, but the team brought a lot of creativity to the challenge, and we figured it out.”
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