"As an ocean world, Europa is very intriguing," Gina DiBraccio, director of NASA's planetary science division, said during a press briefing this month. "This mission is going to help us to understand a complex piece of our solar system."
NASA's Europa Clipper is set to launch on Oct. 10 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will be carried into orbit on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, according to the agency.
The agency will invest approximately $5.2 billion in the entire life of the mission, which spans nearly two decades, beginning in 2015 and ending in 2034, according to a press release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
NASA says the mission aims to answer the question: Does the global, subsurface ocean contain the organic compounds and energy sources necessary to sustain life?
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