NASA’s Europa Clipper Solar Array Arrival at Kennedy Space Center

The transport carrier containing the five-panel solar arrays for NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft arrives at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. The solar array travelled by air from Leiden, Netherlands, where Airbus workers assembled them over the last year, and then put on a barge to travel to the Port of Miami in Florida and loaded onto a semi-truck to be driven to Kennedy. The solar arrays will attach to the spacecraft to power it for the 1.8-billion-mile journey to study Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. Launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is no earlier than October 2024.

The transport carrier containing the five-panel solar arrays for NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft arrives at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. The solar array travelled by air from Leiden, Netherlands, where Airbus workers assembled them over the last year, and then put on a barge to travel to the Port of Miami in Florida and loaded onto a semi-truck to be driven to Kennedy. The solar arrays will attach to the spacecraft to power it for the 1.8-billion-mile journey to study Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. Launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is no earlier than October 2024.

Photographer NASA/Ben Smegelsky
Album SpaceX_Europa_Clipper
Location PHSF
ATLOAirbusAssemblyEuropaEuropa ClipperFalcon HeavyJPLJet Propulsion LabJupiterKSCKennedy Space CenterLSPLaunch Services ProgramMoonNASANational Aeronautical and Space AdministrationPHSFPayload Hazardous Servicing FacilitySpaceXTestand Launch Operationsarrivalicy mooninternal oceanrocketsolar arraysspacecraftJohns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory APL