
Copernical Team
KBR JV awarded $719M contract to aid NASA's development of space orbital systems

Viasat Real-Time Earth opens ground station in Japan

Momentus awarded innovation research contract from Space Development Agency

Rocket Lab to launch NASA Arctic ice caps satellites

Enjoying the Climb: Sols 3916-3918

NASA's $985 million Psyche mission to all-metal asteroid nears liftoff

Russia's Luna-25 probe to reach Moon orbit

Edge of earthquake zone

NASA's Europa probe gets a hotline to Earth

NASA's Europa Clipper is designed to seek out conditions suitable for life on an ice-covered moon of Jupiter. On Aug. 14, the spacecraft received a piece of hardware central to that quest: the massive dish-shaped high-gain antenna.
Stretching 10 feet (3 meters) across the spacecraft's body, the high-gain antenna is the largest and most prominent of a suite of antennas on Europa Clipper. The spacecraft will need it as it investigates the ice-cloaked moon that it's named after, Europa, some 444 million miles (715 million kilometers) from Earth. A major mission goal is to learn more about the moon's subsurface ocean, which might harbor a habitable environment.
Once the spacecraft reaches Jupiter, the antenna's radio beam will be narrowly directed toward Earth. Creating that narrow, concentrated beam is what high-gain antennas are all about.
NASA Invites Media to Psyche Launch, Mission will Study an Asteroid
