Jupiter – Spaceflight Now

NASA decides to launch Europa Clipper on commercial rocket in 2024

February 11, 2021

NASA has decided to launch the multibillion-dollar Europa Clipper mission — a spacecraft to study a moon of Jupiter with an icy crust covering a liquid water ocean — aboard a commercial heavy-lift rocket in October 2024, and not on the government-owned Space Launch System, officials said Wednesday.

NASA mission extension enables first flybys of Jupiter’s moons in 20 years

January 11, 2021

In a pair of mission extensions, NASA has cleared the way for more seismic observations on Mars with the robotic InSight lander and approved plans for the Juno spacecraft to alter its orbit and perform close flybys of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, Ganymede, and the volcanic moon Io.

Juno team planning close flybys of Jupiter’s moons

October 12, 2020

NASA’s Juno spacecraft could perform the first close flybys since the early 2000s of three of Jupiter’s largest moons, including Europa, if the space agency grants the mission an extension, Juno’s lead scientist said recently.

Jupiter looms large in spectacular Hubble image

September 18, 2020

The Hubble Space Telescope turned toward Jupiter last month, capturing colorful views of the giant planet and its icy moon Europa more than 400 million miles from Earth.

Scientists optimistic planetary probes won’t face coronavirus launch delays

April 29, 2020

Launches of interplanetary missions can only depart Earth when the positions of the planets are just right, and officials managing the development of probes set for launch in 2021 and 2022 to explore asteroids and Jupiter says construction milestones and reviews are proceeding to keep the projects on schedule despite the coronavirus pandemic.

NASA to assess proposals for probes to Venus, moons of Jupiter and Neptune

February 13, 2020

NASA announced Thursday it will fund four concept studies for potential robotic missions to Venus, Jupiter’s moon Io and Neptune’s moon Triton ahead of a decision next year to approve up to two of the projects for launch in the mid-to-late 2020s.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft sees moon’s otherworldly shadow on Jupiter

September 18, 2019

Fresh images from NASA’s Juno spacecraft show an ethereal shadow cast by Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io on the planet’s swirling cloud tops.

ESA books launch of Jupiter orbiter with Arianespace

June 19, 2019

The European Space Agency has reserved an Ariane launcher to send a spacecraft toward Jupiter in May 2022, and the mission’s project manager said Tuesday officials could assign the probe to Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket, assuming the vehicle has a successful debut by the end of 2020.

NASA approves three-year extension for Juno mission orbiting Jupiter

June 8, 2018

NASA’s robotic Juno spacecraft wil spend another three years probing the inside of Jupiter, giving the mission more time to meet its primary science objectives after concerns over the health of the probe’s engine prevented it from dropping into a lower, shorter orbit around the solar system’s biggest planet.

Water plumes on Europa detected by Galileo spacecraft

May 14, 2018

A review of data captured by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft as it orbited Jupiter in the 1990s indicates it likely flew through a plume of water vapor spewing from cracks in the surface of the moon Europa, providing independent evidence water is being released from a vast sub-surface ocean beneath its frozen crust, scientists said Monday.