Spacecraft Makers: Testing Europa Clipper’s Magnetometer
Join team members from NASA’s Europa Clipper mission in a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to learn about testing of the spacecraft’s magnetometer, which will help scientists answer the question, “Does Europa have an ocean?”
The magnetometer is made up of a long, 28-foot (6.5-meter) boom and three fluxgate sensors, which are compressed in a canister on the side of the spacecraft until the boom is deployed after launch. The electronics for the instrument are contained in the vault of the spacecraft, along with electronics for the other science instruments.
Spacecraft Makers is a video series that takes audiences behind the scenes to learn more about how space missions, like Europa Clipper, come together. Europa Clipper will explore this icy moon of Jupiter to see if there are conditions suitable for life. Scientists have evidence that a global ocean lies under the moon’s surface, and the mission aims to confirm the existence of the ocean.
The spacecraft needs to be hardy enough to survive a 1.6-billion-mile, six-year journey to Jupiter – and sophisticated enough to perform a detailed science investigation of Europa once it arrives at the Jupiter system in 2030.
Europa Clipper is expected to launch in October 2024 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Transcript
Raquel Villanueva:
Scientists believe Jupiter's Moon Europa has an ocean underneath its icy shell. Today we'll get a closer look at one of the instruments on NASA's Europa Clipper that could tell us more about this hidden ocean.
This is high bay two at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where work is being done on Europa Clipper’s magnetometer.
Mark Lindeman:
A magnetometer is a device that measures the strength of the magnetic field.
A magnetic field is created by flowing electrical currents in objects or in fixed magnets. In the case of Europa, it's electrical current that's flowing in Europa that generates a magnetic field that we can detect with these sensors.
The magnetometer will confirm the existence of the oceans, but it'll also provide more detailed information than that. It'll also tell us about how much salt there is in the ocean, and also may provide information about how deep the ocean is under the ice.
Derek Palm:
The size of the magnetometer, it's about a foot and a half diameter canister, and it is about 28 feet long.
The sensors themselves are very small and they're located at the three different plates. Halfway down the boom, three quarters of the way down, and right at the tip of the boom.
We put the sensors far enough away that the spacecraft doesn't interfere with the readings.
The reason we're doing this test is to make sure that when we let go of it in space, it's gonna pop back to the shape it's supposed to be in.
The importance of doing that today is to make sure that all the systems are operating as expected as a last check before we actually mount the mag boom to the spacecraft and launch the spacecraft on the rocket.
The reason that we do this test in a different high bay than the spacecraft is that, as you can see, this 28-foot-long beam is very large.
So once we complete all of our testing in this room, we're going to transport it to the room next door, and over there we are gonna do some electrical testing with all the spacecraft, electronics, and harnessing before it gets bolted to the spacecraft.
Jeff Wang:
So what we're looking at here is called a Helmholtz coil system. We'll be using this to cancel out Earth's magnetic field, and that gives us a good opportunity to really see the capability of our sensors.
Every single component that comes close to our sensor has to be screened.
Some of the things are belt buckles, clothes, glasses, all of these things carry a magnetic charge. If they've reached a certain distance from our sensor, they can damage it.
We're really excited to build this magnetometer to be able to really verify that an ocean might exist.
Raquel:
Stay tuned as we keep you updated on all the developments happening in the next few months as the mission prepares for the scheduled launch of the Europa Clipper.