NASA’s Europa Clipper probe checked out its radar as the spacecraft hurtled past Mars on the way to Jupiter’s moon Europa. The Mars flyby in March was primarily to use the planet’s gravitational pull to tweak the Europa Clipper’s trajectory. However, boffins were able to use the proximity of the planet to calibrate the spacecraft’s infrared camera and test its …
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NASA’s Europa Clipper radar passes key test during Mars flyby
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft successfully tested its ice-penetrating radar system during a close flyby of Mars earlier this year, proving that the probe is ready for its main mission: peering beneath the frozen crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa to search for signs of subsurface liquid water and possibly even determine if those oceans have the ingredients to form and sustain …
Read More »NASA’s Europa Clipper Radar Instrument Proves Itself at Mars
The agency’s largest interplanetary probe tested its radar during a Mars flyby. The results include a detailed image and bode well for the mission at Jupiter’s moon Europa. As it soared past Mars in March, NASA’s Europa Clipper conducted a critical radar test that had been impossible to accomplish on Earth. Now that mission scientists have studied the full stream …
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