The spacecraft, the Clipper, will be brought to Europe by a Falcon Heavy rocket. That’s the most powerful launcher out there right now, reports Reuters news agency.
Not with own transport
Initially, the mission was to use NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, but it was delayed and budget was overrun.
In exchange for the transport and everything else that comes with it, the American space agency is now transferring 178 million dollars (151.2 million euros) to SpaceX, meldt NASA.
First mission to Jupiter moon
The launch is not until 2024, from the well-known NASA launch pad at Cape Canaveral, in the US state of Florida. This is the first mission to Jupiter’s moon.
This moon is about 630 million kilometers from Earth. The journey is expected to take more than five years.
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The purpose of the mission is to investigate whether life is possible on the icy surface of the moon. This will include high-resolution photos and an analysis of the composition of the ice.
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The mission is also intended to find out whether there are underground lakes and how deep and salty the surface water is.
Battle for space
Elon Musk’s company often provides services to NASA, much to the chagrin of Blue Origin, the space company owned by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos. The two billionaires are engaged in a fierce publicity battle with Richard Branson.
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All three entrepreneurs are in the process of making commercial space travel possible. Richard Branson recently won the ‘pee for billionaires’ contest. He made the first private space flight on July 11 with his company Virgin Atlantic. Amazon founder Bezos followed suit on July 20.
Quarrel over billion-dollar project
The battle is about more than who comes first, because with services to NASA there is also a lot of money to be made. In April, SpaceX won a $2.9 billion contract to build a spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis program. The goal of this project is to fly astronauts to the moon and back for the first time since 1972.
On protest of Bezos’ Blue Origin and another company, Dynetics Inc., has had the contract suspended. Whether these two companies also attempted to win this contract has not been disclosed.
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