SpaceX to launch mission to Jupiter's moon Europa

Gulf Today Report

Elon Musk's private rocket company, SpaceX, was awarded a $178 million contract to launch the first mission to explore Jupiter's icy moon Europa, to find out if it is valid for life, Nasa said on Friday.

"Space Exploration Technologies” based in Hawthorne, California, is scheduled to launch the Europa mission from Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida," Nasa said in a statement published online.

The mission will conduct a detailed survey of the ice-covered Europa, which is slightly smaller than Earth's.

Nasa said one of the mission's goals is high-resolution imaging of Europa's surface, knowing its composition, searching for signs of geological activity, measuring the thickness of its ice cover, and determining the depth and salinity of its surroundings.

The contract is considered as a vote of confidence by Nasa in SpaceX which transported many cargoes and astronauts to the International Space Station.

SpaceX was awarded a $2.9 billion contract in April to build a spacecraft to land on the Moon.

The spacecraft is planned to carry Nasa astronauts for the first time since 1972.

Actually, the contract was suspended after Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and defence contractor Daintex protested.

The partially reusable 23-storey Falcon Heavy is the world's most powerful space vehicle.

It transported its first commercial loads into space in 2019.