On March 1, the Europa Clipper spacecraft will perform a close flyby of Mars. This visit will help it reach the goal of its journey — Europa, a moon of Jupiter, beneath whose icy surface lies a vast ocean.
Europa Clipper was launched in the autumn of 2024 using a Falcon Heavy rocket. But even its power wasn’t enough to guide the mission directly to the target. Therefore, engineers designed the Europa Clipper’s flight path in such a way that the vehicle would use the planets’ gravity to orient itself properly and gain the missing speed.
The first gravity maneuver will take place on March 1, when Europa Clipper will fly 884 km from the surface of Mars. During the maneuver, its heliocentric velocity will decrease from 24.5 km/s to 22.5 km/s.
There is no error in the figures above. The speed of the Europa Clipper will indeed decrease. The spacecraft uses Mars to slow down and rearrange its trajectory to head toward Earth, whose gravity is much more powerful than Martian one. On December 3, 2026, Europa Clipper will come close to our planet. Earth’s gravity, like a slingshot, will accelerate it, giving the speed necessary to reach Europa. If all goes according to plan, the probe will enter a permanent orbit around Jupiter in April 2030.
The upcoming maneuver allows not only to save fuel, but also to practice. During the Mars flyby, two scientific instruments will be activated aboard the Europa Clipper. One of them is the E-THEMIS thermal imager designed for multispectral imaging in the mid and far infrared ranges. When the vehicle reaches Europa, it will use it to search for geologically active areas and geysers.
The Europa Clipper radar instrument will also be fully tested during its approach to Mars. The fact that its antennas are so massive and the waves they emit are so long that engineers couldn’t test them on Earth before launching the vehicle into space.
Earlier we reported on how the stars of the constellation Corvus helped orient the Europa Clipper in space.
According to nasa.gov
