Something Weird happened to Boeing ULA NASA After SpaceX Falcon heavy & Starship Super Heavy Launch

NASA and SpaceX have successfully launched NASA’s Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. This momentous launch took place on Monday, October 14, 2024, at 12:05 PM EDT from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. With an instantaneous launch window, the mission’s liftoff occurred as scheduled, though backup launch opportunities were available on Tuesday, October 15, and throughout the rest of October. However, those contingencies were not needed as the mission successfully began its journey to Europa on Monday.
Europa Clipper is regarded as one of the most significant planetary science missions of this decade. It is classified as one of NASA’s large strategic science missions, commonly known as flagship missions. Notably, it is the largest planetary science mission NASA has ever developed. Europa Clipper represents the first in-depth investigation of Europa, a moon of Jupiter that has long intrigued scientists due to its potential to harbor conditions suitable for life.
The idea for a mission to Europa dates back several decades. A Europa orbiter mission was first proposed to NASA in 1997 as part of the agency’s Discovery program. Although that particular mission was not selected, the concept of exploring Europa gained momentum in the years that followed. In the late 1990s, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft was orbiting Jupiter and frequently made flybys of Europa during its main and extended missions. The extended mission, known as the Galileo Europa Mission (GEM), significantly advanced our understanding of Europa’s potential for habitability. Galileo’s detailed investigations of the icy moon revealed important clues about Europa’s subsurface ocean and its potential to support microbial extraterrestrial life.
Building on the foundation laid by Galileo, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) began conducting preliminary studies for dedicated missions to Europa. Interest in such a mission was further solidified in 2013 when the National Research Council, in its Planetary Science Decadal Survey, formally recommended a mission to Europa. With this endorsement, NASA initiated the Europa Clipper mission, a collaboration between the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and JPL. Together, they aimed to unlock the mysteries of this icy moon and investigate its potential habitability.
Though Europa Clipper eventually launched aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket, this was not the mission’s original plan. Initially, NASA had intended to launch Europa Clipper on the Space Launch System (SLS), the agency’s super-heavy lift rocket designed for deep space missions. In fact, the U.S. Congress mandated that the spacecraft use the SLS for its launch, reflecting the high-profile nature of the mission and the significance of the SLS in NASA’s broader space exploration plans.

#starshiplaunch #starship #ift5

[paulhunter]

How embarrassing has to be for NASA for SpaceX to have to be called in to not only do the launch for them but also do it over 2 billion dollars cheaper lol. Just think of how much more they would have saved if the three boosters didn't have to be sacrificed in the process. Then i think he also said that it would have cost almost a billion dollars to redesign the probe if you want to call it that to deal with the harsh vibration of the SLS system's solid rocket boosters. So in reality SpaceX not only had the rocket to do the launch that NASA couldn't get ready, but did it close to 3 billion dollars cheaper. Man NASA used to be something for America to be proud of back in the Apollo days, but those days are so far gone. It's turned into just another poorly run government agency that can barely get anything done because of all of the bureaucracy and politics that are involved. SpaceX is showing the world what can be accomplished when you put brilliant people in charge of something and get the government out of the way.

[nicosixtyfour]

Meanwhile, Blue Origin, hasn’t even made it to space after 20 years.

[PDQkevin]

Falcon heavy was between 1/5th and 1/10th the cost of SLS for this launch

[robsin]

Imagine if SpaceX got the same amount of money, as boing over the last 10 years. We could be on our way to Mars by now.

[thDIVTimberwolf]

Have we learned to stop laughing at Elon's wild ideas, yet? I certainly have.

[jessefry]

None of the Falcon 9's returned from today's Falcon Heavy launch of Europa Clipper. They were previously reused many times, but were expendable on this mission--all of the fuel in all three was needed to put the spacecraft where it needed to be to start its journey to Europa.

[imconsequetau]

SpaceX saves the spacecraft customer (NASA) 2 billion dollars over using SLS.

[loycletcheriii]

Boeing and Blue Origin are both finished.
It would be decades before they catch up to SpaceX currently.

[Jamesdylandean]

Informative, but what was the weird something that happened?

[tastyfrzz]

Meanwhile, Russias new ICBM blew up in it's silo.

[ookammi]

its disturbing to me that 1997 is now decades :/

[Quakeboy]

No-one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. (Jeff Wayne)

[demej]

So what was the weird thing that happened? I didn't get that.

[richystar]

It gets worse for Nasa... even rescuing two astronauts from being stranded on the ISS. Maybe SpaceX should re-purpose the ISS and place it in Mars orbit. Instead of scapping it at the end of its mission.

[LG-qzom]

It is hard to envision just how large that booster is in real life.
This SpaceX recovery is the equivalent of capturing the Saturn V's 1st AND 2nd Stages COMBINED. it is enormous despite how small it appears in video. It is worth viewing in person just to fathom the True Size !!!

[jeffpalser]

Well done. I appreciate all the research you did on this. You should do more of this type.

[angerskarin]

cant wait for starship to be done so we can move stuff in space faster.

[eveningstarnm]

Why were the early Europa mission proposals skipped? This should be investigated to make sure something like that never happens again. Europa has always been the obvious place to look for life. It has liquid water!

[tomhayden]

Why does nobody ever mention Arthur C Clarke's 2001 in this context? (Well worth reading if you haven't!)

[johnrickard]

I find it kinda humorous that SpaceX's "we don't really want to do this" price ended up being $3 mil cheaper than SLS 🤪