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NASA’s Europa Clipper is about to use Mars’ gravitational pull to slingshot itself as it makes its way to Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon later this week.
The craft launched from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in October 2024, embarking on a 1.8-billion-mile journey to the gas giant.
The goal is to reach Europa, the smallest of the planet’s four Galilean moons, in April 2030, as part of the first mission specifically designed to study the under 2,000-mile-across space rock.
The mission’s main objective is to investigate whether the moon is habitable. Its icy surface has long intrigued scientists, with evidence suggesting it’s covered in a massive, salty subsurface ocean, which could harbor extraterrestrial life.
Experts have previously described it as one of the best places to look for alien life.
But getting there is no easy feat. Clipper’s journey will involve the “gravity assist” maneuver around Mars later this week, and the Earth again next year — a circuitous path that not only saves plenty of fuel, but will be much faster than traveling straight to Jupiter.
Gravity assists have become common practice for spacecraft venturing to the far reaches of our solar system. For instance, last year, the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) — which will also be exploring Europa, in addition to its larger cousins Ganymede and Callisto — performed a daring “first-ever double gravity assist maneuver” around the Earth to speed up on its way to Jupiter. (JUICE’s anticipated arrival at Jupiter is July 2031, roughly a year after Clipper.)
Europa Clipper’s flyby of Mars on March 1 will bring it within just 550 miles above the Martian surface, allowing scientists to study the planet’s surface using Clipper’s radar and thermal imager, according to NASA.
During its approach, the 12,750-pound spacecraft will be traveling at roughly 15.2 miles per second. Counterintuitively, instead of speeding up, it’s aiming to pump its brakes to around 14 miles per second during its Martian gravity assist.
But during its next flyby of Earth in late 2026, it will use our planet’s gravitational forces to boost its velocity to finally beeline it to Jupiter’s orbit.
“We come in very fast, and the gravity from Mars acts on the spacecraft to bend its path,” said NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission systems engineer Brett Smith in a statement. “Meanwhile, we’re exchanging a small amount of energy with the planet, so we leave on a path that will bring us back past Earth.”
Besides saving fuel and traveling vast distances much faster, gravity assists also allow scientists to do some bonus research. Scientists at NASA are already looking forward to getting a close-up look of the Red Planet with the spacecraft’s radar and thermal imaging sensors — a cherry on top of an already exciting deep space mission.
More on Europa: NASA Preparing to Launch Mission to World That “May Be Habitable Today”
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