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PIA24478: Prepping Europa Clipper's Propulsion Tanks
Contamination control engineers in a clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, evaluate a propellant tank before it is installed in NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft.
 Mission:  Europa Clipper 
 Spacecraft:  Europa Clipper
 Product Size:  5874 x 3916 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Goddard Space Flight Center 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA24478.tif (57.91 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA24478.jpg (2.886 MB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Contamination control engineers in a clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, evaluate a propellant tank before it is installed in NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft. The tank is one of two that will be used to hold the spacecraft's propellant. It will be inserted into the cylinder seen at left in the background, one of two cylinders that make up the propulsion module.

With an internal global ocean under a thick layer of ice, Jupiter's moon Europa may have the potential to harbor existing life. Europa Clipper will swoop around Jupiter on an elliptical path, dipping close to the moon on each flyby to collect data. Understanding Europa's habitability will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential for finding life beyond our planet. Europa Clipper is set to launch in 2024.

More information about Europa and Europa Clipper can be found here: europa.nasa.gov

Image Credit:
NASA/GSFC Denny Henry

Image Addition Date:
2021-08-05