Engineers were previously designing the spacecraft to be able to launch on either an SLS or a commercial booster, resulting in extra work and additional costs, and delaying Europa Clipper’s critical design review, a milestone in which the spacecraft’s design is frozen. 25 directed the Clipper team to work toward launching the spacecraft on a commercial rocket. The flexibility provided in the 2021 budget language gave NASA the green light to finally move ahead with a commercial rocket procurement for Europa Clipper.īob Pappalardo, Europa Clipper’s project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said Wednesday that NASA managers on Jan. And an SLS launch would cost up to $1.5 billion more than launching Europa Clipper on a commercial rocket, according to the space agency. If Europa Clipper was forced to launch on an SLS rocket, NASA would likely have to put the spacecraft into storage to wait for the launcher’s availability, NASA officials said. Lawmakers gave NASA some flexibility on the launch vehicle decision in the fiscal year 2021 budget, directing the agency to launch Europa Clipper on the Space Launch System only if the rocket is available, and if “if torsional loading analysis has confirmed Clipper’s appropriateness for SLS.”Įuropa Clipper managers last year raised concerns about the spacecraft’s compatibility with the Space Launch System due to structural loads the probe will encounter during an SLS launch. NASA officials said last year a Space Launch System rocket would not be available for the Europa Clipper launch until 2025 due to commitments to use SLS rockets on the agency’s Artemis moon missions. The language passed in previous NASA appropriations bills directed NASA to launch the probe on the SLS rocket, but Congress relented in the fiscal year 2021 spending bill passed in December. The decision ends a prolonged dilemma for NASA, which until last year was legally required to launch the Europa Clipper mission on the more expensive Space Launch System. NASA has decided to launch the multibillion-dollar Europa Clipper mission on a commercial heavy-lift rocket in October 2024, and not on the government-owned Space Launch System, officials said Wednesday.
Artist’s concept of the Europa Clipper spacecraft, with Europa and Jupiter in the background.