Re:Crew-9 Returns to Earth
by n4r9 on Wednesday March 19, 2025 @06:32AM
(#43410222)
Just last year NASA launched the largest ever interplanetary space-craft, and hopefully the first craft to approach and conduct scientific studies on Europa. SpaceX is almost entirely focused on getting humans into space - which is great - but NASA's work is not to be discounted.
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The Europa Clipper is really cool. I think the Cassini Huygens that launched in 1997 has greater mass though.
SpaceX isn't entirely focused on getting humans to space since they launch the vast majority of satellites thanks to great innovations in reducing the cost of launches, such as reusable rockets. But there are some competitor launch vehicles coming soon that could be interesting as well.
Europa Clipper is 6.1T whilst Huygens was 5.6T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heaviest_spacecraft . Also worth mentioning that Jupiter is much further away on average.
I got my numbers mixed up --- you're right, the Europa Clipper is bigger by all metrics.
NASA didn't launch it? it was on a falcon heavy
Re:Crew-9 Returns to Earth
by somenameforme on Wednesday March 19, 2025 @09:34AM
(#43411767)
NASA built the probe, but SpaceX launched it. [1] I don't think you were suggesting otherwise, but somebody who did not know as much would probably misunderstand what you're saying.