Engineers on NASA's Europa Clipper mission work with a piece of hardware called star trackers before they are integrated onto the spacecraft in a clean room at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in 2022. The star trackers are seen here with red covers to protect their lenses.

The star trackers, formally called stellar reference units, look for stars and use them like a compass to help mission controllers know the exact orientation of the spacecraft – information critical for pointing telecommunications antennas toward Earth and sending data back and forth smoothly.

The spacecraft launched from the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 14, 2024.

Europa Clipper's three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon's icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission's detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with APL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

For more information about NASA's Europa Clipper mission, go to:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper/