First ultraviolet knowledge collected from NASA’s Europa Clipper mission

The Southwest Analysis Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft has efficiently accomplished its preliminary commissioning following the October 14, 2024, launch. Scheduled to reach within the Jovian system in 2030, the spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and in the end carry out repeated shut flybys of the icy moon Europa. Earlier observations present robust proof for a subsurface ocean of liquid water that would host circumstances favorable for all times.

Europa-UVS is one in every of 9 science devices within the mission payload, together with one other SwRI-led and developed instrument, the MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration (MASPEX). The UVS instrument collects ultraviolet mild to create photographs to assist decide the composition of Europa’s atmospheric gases and floor supplies.

“SwRI scientists began this course of in January from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Nevertheless, we needed to evacuate because of the fires in southern California,” mentioned SwRI Institute Scientist Dr. Kurt Retherford, principal investigator (PI) of Europa-UVS. “We needed to wait till Might to open the instrument’s aperture door and gather UV mild from house for the primary time. We noticed part of the sky, verifying that the instrument is performing properly.”

SwRI has offered ultraviolet spectrographs for different spacecraft, together with ESA’s Rosetta comet orbiter, in addition to NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission in orbit across the moon and Juno mission to Jupiter.

“Europa-UVS is the sixth on this collection, and it advantages vastly from the design expertise gained by our group from the Juno-UVS instrument, launched in 2011, because it pertains to working in Jupiter’s harsh radiation atmosphere,” mentioned Matthew Freeman, mission supervisor for Europa-UVS and director of SwRI’s House Instrumentation Division. “Every successive instrument we construct is extra succesful than its predecessor.”

Weighing simply over 40 kilos (19 kg) and drawing solely 7.9 watts of energy, UVS is smaller than a microwave oven, but this highly effective instrument will decide the relative concentrations of assorted parts and molecules within the environment of Europa as soon as within the Jovian system. An identical instrument launched in 2023 aboard ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer spacecraft, which will likely be learning a number of of Jupiter’s icy moons, gases from the volcanic moon Io and Jupiter itself. Having two UVS devices within the Jupiter system at one time gives complementary science.

Along with performing atmospheric research, Europa-UVS can even seek for proof of potential plumes erupting from inside Europa.

“Europa-UVS will search out potential plumes spouting from Europa’s icy floor and research them to know what they inform us in regards to the nature of subsurface water reservoirs,” mentioned Dr. Thomas Greathouse, SwRI workers scientist and Europa-UVS co-deputy PI. “The instrument is working fabulously, and we’re enthusiastic about its means to make new discoveries as soon as we get to Jupiter.”

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Europa Clipper mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. The Europa Clipper mission was developed in partnership with the Johns Hopkins College Utilized Physics Laboratory (APL), in Laurel, Maryland.