Inside the JPL Space Simulator with Europa Clipper

The conditions that NASA spacecraft endure are indeed extreme: the intense shaking of a rocket launch, the jolt of separating from the rocket, the temperature fluctuations, and—of course—the unforgiving vacuum of space. This is why, before launch, our skilled engineers meticulously replicate these harsh conditions, showcasing their expertise and the rigorous testing process. Streamed live on Wednesday, March 27 from NASA JPL's Space Simulator, where the Europa Clipper spacecraft recently completed its crucial thermal vacuum testing. Planetary Scientist Elodie Lesage and Deputy Payload Systems Engineer Annie Marinan chat through the spacecraft testing and discuss the exciting possibilities we hope to uncover when we reach Jupiter's icy moon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

What is said in the film

Hi, I'm Raquel Villanueva, coming to you live from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The conditions that spacecraft endure are pretty extreme. The intense shaking of a rocket launch. The jolt of the rocket separating the extreme temperature changes and, of course, the unforgiving vacuum of space. That's why, before launch, engineers do their best to replicate these harsh conditions.

Behind me is a JPL space simulator, and it is an active space here in this facility. So you will be able to hear some noise of the airflow in the background. And the Europa Clipper spacecraft was tested here not too long ago. It was tested here to make sure it would be able to operate in the extreme conditions it will face on its trip to Jupiter's icy moon. This was one of the final phases of testing here at JPL.

The four Europa Clipper heads to Florida's Kennedy Space Center, where it is set to launch this October. Today, we're going to walk through the testing and Europa Clipper with the help from some of the members of the team. Now, if you have any questions you'd like to ask, leave them in the chat and we'll get to them in just a few minutes. But first, let's talk to an American who is a deputy payload systems engineer. Hi, Annie.

Hi, Raquel. Welcome to the space simulator. So first question on everyone's mind, what is a space simulator? Is that like an anti-gravity chamber? It is not an anti-gravity chamber.

But this chamber behind us does is three main things. One is that it allows you to pump out all the air so you can actually test in a vacuum. This and the other two are related to temperature. So one of them is you can cool the walls and the floor of the chamber using liquid nitrogen to simulate the very cold background of space. And there's also a sun simulator.

So you can you can simulate the radiation that the spacecraft will feel from the sun as it travels to Europa. And I heard that the sun simulator lamps are located in a different part of the building. Yeah. So there's more to this facility than you can see right now. The sun simulator is about three stories down and it shines up to a mirror at the top of the of the chamber, and then the sunlight comes down from the top.

And the really cool thing about that is we can actually control the temperature of the sun and how much power we get. Because as the spacecraft gets closer to Jupiter, the sun gets dimmer from its perspective. And why is it important to test spacecraft like Europa Clipper in this facility? So this facility is the only chance we get on the ground to actually test the spacecraft in the environment it was designed to operate in. And so I'm the deputy payload system engineer for Europa Clipper, and one of this I get to work with all of the instruments.

And so some of the instruments we can't fully operate in an ambient environment. So we use this chamber to actually fully test out some of those instruments. So we have high voltage that we can't can't run safely in ambient conditions. We don't want it to arc. And we have some elements that are designed to only operate at very cold temperatures.

And you only want to do that when there's when there's no air or water that can condense onto ice on your instrument. You know, this facility is a national historic landmark. That's pretty cool. Can you tell us more about the history and the missions that have been here before in the past, before Europa Clipper? Sure.

So this facility was developed and built in 1961. So a long time ago. And so every major mission that has come through JPL has gone through and tested in this chamber. So things like Voyager and Cassini and Galileo and the Mars Rovers, Curiosity and perseverance and psyche. And just a couple of weeks ago, Europa Clipper.

And what was it like being in that space? You got to go in there? Correct? Did they let me crawl under the spacecraft? Yeah, it was very cool.

It's very it's dark in there. So when the sun is not on there, there's a lot of that. So this picture shows it with the sun on. So you can see all of the hardware illuminated, but there's like the walls are completely black and yeah, going in there, it's, it's very cool. Like you're just surrounded by black walls when you're in there and there's a spacecraft just right above you.

And what other tested Europa Clipper have to go through this? There's a whole environmental test campaign that all spacecraft to go go through. But for Europa Clipper, it started last fall. It's been months long. The first thing we did was the dynamics test.

So we had the spacecraft go through a vibe test and an acoustics test and a separation test. So we're seeking the spacecraft and also the acoustics test, putting it in a chamber that has speakers surrounding it and just blasting sound at the spacecraft. And the whole point of that test is to really show that it will survive the launch. Environments are the craziest things we do, that a spacecraft is launch in the next major environmental test we did after that, it was called an electromagnetic interference and compatibility test and so on that one, we're actually turning on different boxes on the spacecraft and making sure that when when you turn one thing on over here, it doesn't cause noise or interference or feedback or anything on other parts of the spacecraft. And the last one was the thermal vacuum test, where, again, we tested it in the environment that it's going to operate in.

Well, thank you so much. And I know we'll have questions for you later on when we have social questions come in. And up next, I would like to welcome planetary scientist Lisa. Hi. Hi.

Thank you for joining us today. Thank you. So we learned all about Europa Clipper. Now it's time to learn about Jupiter's icy moon Europa. Can you tell us more about it?

Yes. So Europa is approximately approximately the size of our moons, so it's very small, but it is entirely covered in water, ice. And more interestingly, below this water ice, there is a global saltwater ocean, as you can see on the animation. So this ocean is 60 miles deep. So it's a lot of water.

On Europa, we have twice as much more water than on Earth. So if we combine all the oceans of Earth, we have spilled twice more water on Europa, which makes it pretty special. There's also on the surface of Europa, plenty of amazing geological features which tell us that Europe is a very active body, which makes it very interesting and this is why we want to go to Europe. And I'm also curious to know about your role as a planetary scientist on the mission. Could you tell us more about it?

Yes. So on Europa Clipper, I am a postdoc in fields and projects science. So Project Science is the group of scientists that are responsible for the scientific success of the mission. So, for example, they define the goals of the mission. So why are we going to Europa?

And then they ensure that we have a procedure to answer all these big questions. And so this is part of the this is the team I am a part of. And what are you hoping to answer as a scientist when it comes to Europa? So personally, my research focuses on the transport of water from Europe as ocean to the surface. So I wonder if it is possible that there is water that can travel from the ocean through the ice shell and then Europe that the surface through little ice volcanoes.

So we do a bunch of numerical simulations to understand this, and they use data from past missions. And so this is just the way I'm super excited about Europa Clipper, because I'm finally going to have new pictures of the surface and measurements of the atmosphere of Europe. To answer those big question, we can definitely hear your passion for Europa. Can you tell us what you love personally about the ocean? Yes, Europa's ocean is very unique in the solar system because it is in contact with the seafloor, the rocky seafloor.

So just like on the earth, the the deep of the ocean is in contact with rocks. Right. So this allows a lot of chemical exchanges between the water and the rocks, which make the ocean really rich in chemical elements. And on the other end of the surface of Europa, there is a lot of very harsh radiation from Jupiter that also creates chemical elements. And if these can travel through the ocean down to the ocean, this can provide the energy to sustain of maybe life at Europa.

So whether this actually is happening or not, that Europa is still an open question. And this is why we really want to go there. And the way it is such a unique place in the solar system, because it's the only one to have the combination of these two things. Thank you. Those are all the questions I have for both of you.

Now it is time to answer your questions that are coming in through social. So let me pull them up right now and see what we have. All right. The first question is from Tal Kabat on YouTube. Who wants to know what precautions are in place to prevent cross-contamination when sampling Europa's Ocean ice shell?

Hey, I can. So if I crosscheck. So we have we'll talk about flip from a planetary protection contamination perspective. So we do have a planetary protection program on Europa Clipper and contamination control. So we do a lot of sampling and a lot of cleaning of almost every surface on the spacecraft periodically throughout the whole Atlas Test campaign.

So we have requirements on how clean things need to be and the materials that we use. It is all informed by contamination and planetary protection requirements. Yeah. And for that, you also have to wear special suits too, to be in those rooms. Yeah, we wear bunny suits.

Yeah, that's the that's what we refer to them. And you kind of like describe what a body suit is. Yeah. You're basically covered head to toe in, like, a flexible plastic. There's So you wear a face masks, you wear head coverings and shoe coverings and then and gloves and you tape the gloves.

Typically, you can see it in the in this picture here. Like basically all all you can really see are the people's eyes. So you get very, very good at recognizing people from how they walk and what their eyes look like. Well, thank you so much for that. Next question is.

Fax machine mode on Twitch wants to know what capabilities will Europa Clipper have that Voyager, Galileo and Juno didn't have. We may ask. Europa Clipper has a lot of capabilities, I think. But what's really new is the resolution of these instruments is going to be much higher. So the pictures we're going to have on the surface, for example, are going to be much higher resolution like we've never had before.

We're also going to sample for the first time particles from the atmosphere of Europa, which we couldn't do before, and then analyze them. We have to instruments that are going to capture particles and analyze them. So this is this is pretty new, too. What instrument are you most excited about? And personally, I would say it is the cameras.

I am the most excited about this because these low resolution images we have from Galileo or to me extremely frustrating because they want to know what the surface looks like. Exactly. So, no, you know, I'm just waiting for high resolution images. You know what it looks like? Like, do we have little you know, what size the little rocks of water is like?

I want to know what the surface looks like. And what about you? I don't know if I can give that answer. I was working on all of these, working out all of the instances. But when I started with is Uv-c, which is the Ultraviolet Spectrograph.

Now, in that one, like it's the closest to home for me because that's when I started on on Europa Clipper, but that's when we call it the Plume Hunter for a Clipper. Yeah, So it's very diplomatic answer too. I appreciate that. Yes. So I on YouTube asked the existence of Vapor of course makes Europa a very promising candidate for possible life.

But what gave Europa precedence over other moons of Jupiter as well as moons of Saturn? So for the moons of Jupiter, Europa is the only one where the ocean is in contact with the rocky floor. The other moons are something that is pretty special too. But they have a layer of high pressure ice at the bottom of the ocean. So the cross ocean would look like ice, water, ice and then the rocky forest.

So the ocean, your ice less was the rocks too. So there's less room for chemistry and for the moons of Saturn, there's insulators that is extremely also interesting. And where, you know, we may go in the future because it's also been prioritized by NASA's for the next decades or so. And so that is also extremely interesting. Thank you.

And we have Philip on YouTube who asks, how long will the spacecraft be operated once it reaches Jupiter? so once it reaches Jupiter? I think there's there are a couple of years of like primary operations. And then as every mission hopes to extend past that, and I think we're planning for a few years once we actually get to Europa. And, you know, Andy, someone wants you to know that they are digging your earrings, your nascent area.

I think you and we have a new question coming in. It is from Lord Ah in Lazarus to which asks, When did when Europa was discovered, how long did it take for scientists to learn about the water? You say Europa was discovered long ago by Galileo and we went there for the first time. Was Voyager and for the water. So we've always known that it's covered in water ice.

The ocean was confirmed using with the mission. Galileo was like in the 2000. We suspected that it was there before that, but I would say yes, Galileo was the confirmation for a notion at Europa. Next question is from Standard Meter on YouTube. Who asks What is the most innovative instrument of Europa Clipper?

Kind of follow up to our instruments. QUESTION So there's there's one called Mass Spex, which is a mass spectrometer. And then I think that one, it's one of the more complex instruments. It's one of the ones that sampling particles from the atmosphere. But if you look at it, it kind of looks like a Reagan.

But it's very it's it's one of the like the most groundbreaking like new technologies that if they if if it works and it works as expected, it's like it's the best resolution of that mass spectrometer that will that will have flown. And do you have anyone you'd like to add or I would agree with you. I'm also pretty excited by mass specs and is definitely a very high technology instrument for sure. The next question up is from Sandra on YouTube, who asks, What would we expect to see carbon based life forms in the ocean or based on some other materials in case there is life to be found on Europa? so Europa Clipper is not a mission made to detect life or characterize it right.

We're going to characterize the environment at Europa to understand if life could survive or emerge there. So we do not have instruments to characterize the life forms on Europa and we couldn't tell you what their carbon base there is something else. This is obviously a very interesting question and you know, I hope that one day we'll have an answer. And for everyone who is just tuning in, we are inside a facility that has a JPL space simulator behind us. And if you hear kind of some airflow noises, that is just from the space, like any, can you kind of explain why we're hearing what we hear right now?

I can try. I mean, there's a lot of just vents and airflow in the room so that the whole chamber is supported by a series of pumps and vents and an air ducts and everything. So I think it's just a lot of a lot of ambient noise that comes along with supporting a chamber like this. And of course, we have our experts, Annie and Elodie, with us. So if you have any questions about the testing that goes on here or Europa Clipper, you can drop them in the chat.

I am reading them as we speak. So the next one is from Toolbox Robotics on YouTube. Who asks is the data transmission power of the Europa Clipper to Earth greater than that of the previous SpaceX craft? I mean in general? Yeah, then.

But we have a high gain antenna, most most spacecraft that go all the way to Jupiter are beyond that. You need a high gain antenna to transmit back to the earth. So it's it's not going to be like as high powered as the ones that went farther from Jupiter. But I mean, we tried to fly. We try to expand on capabilities and tried to get as much data as we can.

And the more instruments you have, the more data you need. So we definitely need the power to get all that data back. Right. And the next question is osteo Polar on Twitch asks What protections are in place to keep the spacecraft from accidentally contaminating the moon's oceans? So your objective is not going to touch the surface or in the ocean, right?

It's only going to perform flybys of Europa. So we're not landing. So this is one of the most, you know, the best thing we can do to protect Europa's Ocean. But also, as you say, the spacecraft is extremely clean. It's always it's single serve.

It is completely clean. And with using a little swaps, there's no contamination. The spacecraft. So and also, you know, the traveling in space is going to need cleaning of the spacecraft because life forms most of them. And there is good.

Now suffice it to travel. So it's expected to be pretty clean when it arrives there. You mentioned the flybys. Can you kind of expand on what that will look like for the viewers at home and how many will happen, like kind of the trajectory? Yeah, sure.

So Europe Clipper is actually going to orbit around Jupiter. It is not going to orbit around Europa because Europa, the environment is is very harsh. There's a lot of radiation that would damage the spacecraft very severely. So to make it last longer, we're going to going to orbit Jupiter and every orbits, we're going to perform a flyby of Europa. So we're going to fly by the surface, turn on all the instruments, take all the pictures, the measurements, and leave until the next flyby.

And so we're going to perform like 50 flybys nominally. So this is what the mission is going to look like. And I know we touched on this question, but for those just tuning in, that Ogle guy on YouTube asks What is the mission duration? Nominally so nominally, there's about six years of cruise after we launch, before we actually get to Jupiter, we do a flyby of Mars, do another flyby of Earth, and then swing all the way around all the way out to Jupiter after we get into Jupiter's orbit. It's a few years of operation and doing the flybys of Clipper.

And now we have John Ralph on YouTube. Who wants to know, how do we know Europa has a rocky floor? You assume you taking measurements of the gravity gravity field of Europa. We can learn about the density of each layer. And so rocks are very dense, so they're pretty easy to identify, right?

Rocks and everyone cars can be identified pretty easily using gravity. So this is what we have on earth, right? We have a Irun core and then wraps around it and then oceans on top. Europa is just the same as the iron core, a rocky mantle and then a global ocean and then the ice crust, because it's very cold to there. And then Greg Mandel on YouTube wants to know will the spacecraft fly by any plumes emitted by Europa?

Hopefully, I hope so. So if there are eruptions of water from the inside of Europa, yes, we would observe plumes. We're insured that this is actually going on at Europa. We're insure that there will be active plumes at the moments where we're there because you know, we would need to be pretty lucky to observe this. The hopefully will fly by a plume and be able to sample some of the material you know, a plume can be described in many ways.

Can you tell us what is thought to be a plume in Europe? You can be sure, off the geysers So like a plume of vapor and water vapor transporting some material from the subsurface. So, for example, souls or little chemical elements. But yes, I would say what a vapor and then always grains. We thank you.

Now joke's more on YouTube wants to know can you simulate Jupiter's orbit conditions on the space simulator which is behind us right now, if you're just tuning in. Yeah. So kind of the the space simulator kind of focuses on the sun and then the background of space. So in from a thermal environment, we we definitely do simulate the like that flux from the sun that the spacecraft will see at the distance of Jupiter. Jupiter is about five times farther from the sun than Earth is.

But another thing we can do then, so that's just thermal. But we run other tests using computers and things plugged into the spacecraft to make it think that it's orbiting around Jupiter. And so it will run the wheels and think that it's fired thrusters. And so we can check out all of the operations of the systems together by kind of spoofing those signals. And then we have another question coming in from STEM in the attack.

Again, what was the most difficult instrument to make and how does it work? again, I don't want to be an idea, but yes, I mean, so every instrument is it's like we're building things for the first time. And that's one of the most exciting things about Europa Clipper. We've got a suite of nine instruments plus a gravity radio science experiment, and so they all have kind of their quirks and but also they're really cool science that they're doing. So then yeah, I think then they kind of, they range and like everyone, every single one is kind of very complex in its own way.

So it's a little hard to like just pick one of them. That's the most that was a great diplomatic answer. Once again, Andy Morrisville on Twitter asks my ten year old son Rowan, and asks, Is it possible that there are plants growing under the ice on Europa, that there is one growing under the ocean? Sorry, plants? Yeah.

so plants technically need some sunlight. So I would say that if there is anything in Europa's Ocean, it does probably not look like plants like we have on earth or, you know, any life that we have on earth. I think it would be pretty different. But we don't have more information. So, you know, pretty much anything is possible.

And we have Jack on YouTube. Who wants to know, will the mission be crushed like Cassini when it's over? Can you kind of describe what the end of mission will look like? So my current understanding is that we are crashing into Ganymede. So it's not not exactly the same as Cassini.

It's not going into Jupiter, for example. But that is my understanding of the current end of the mission. And then we have S1 3ks who has a question more about the images that will be coming in. Will Europa Clipper give us detailed images or videos of Penitent? Yeah, I want to make sure I got that correct.

Penitents. Those are kind of like ice spikes that can form when you have very specific light conditions and in very cold environments. And it has been discussed whether it exists or not on Europa. And we do not have an answer yet because we couldn't see them on the Galileo images because their resolution is just too low. So if there are open instances of Europa, we should see them on the new pictures.

But again, that's really ensure that they actually exist there. And what was the question about asking about the imagery? Like will Cooper give us those detailed images? yeah. It's going to be very detailed images.

And for videos, I don't think so. But you know, just like series of images, we'll have the images for. Yes. Stryker on YouTube asks, is this mission the beginning of many other missions? I hope so.

It might depend on what we what we find there. As also, you know, this is a question that comes up a lot when we have these type of lives is how did you get into your career field that people love to know how you got into this mission. So I can I'll start with Andy. Sure. So I actually wanted to be an astronaut when I was little, so I kind of stumbled upon aerospace engineering as a field and looking in to career options.

When I was little, didn't know it existed before high school, but then I decided that's what I was going to major in. I now have three degrees in aerospace engineering, and then it wasn't until I was an undergrad that I really knew what JPL was. So I came to JPL kind of right out of right out of school, and I've loved it ever since. But then, yeah, I chose aerospace engineering because I thought that's that sounded like, I love space. Space engineering.

That's perfect. But there's so many different kinds of backgrounds of everyone that works at JPL. yeah, for sure. What about you? Ality.

So I started studying physics. I did on my studies in France. So I started at the university. I studied physics as an underground and an undergrad. I'm sorry.

And then I studied planetary sciences for my master's program. And then I had the infantry sciences. And then this is when I discovered NASA and JPL and moved here for this amazing postdoc. Yeah. And what advice would you have?

Well, what I'm sorry, advice would you have for students who want to get into STEM or maybe a career like yours? I would I would agree with any that there's so many possibilities that can just lead you to this kind of careers. I work with people that studied chemistry, geology, physics. I work with engineers. So there's so many pathways that can lead you to this kind of things.

Just, you know, dream big and never give up. And yeah, we have one. We have time for one more question here. So really quickly, what are you both most excited about for the mission? Andy I think my biggest relief will come when we get kind of the what we call first light on all the instruments, like turn them on for the first time and make sure they actually work and get the data that we want them to.

And what about you? I'm sorry, was the question. What are you most excited about when it comes to Europa Clipper and beautiful pictures and also sampling of plumes? If we sample plumes. But yes, definitely, definitely the pictures, that is all the time.

We have four questions today. Thank you so much for answering all our questions today. And thank you for watching at home. Joining us in the JPL space simulator. If you'd like to learn more about the Europa Clipper mission, you can follow at NASA, JPL on Instagram, X and Facebook.

Thanks for watching.

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