SpaceX awarded a $178M contract for NASA's mission to Jupiter's moon - Daily Mail

SpaceX will provide 'launch services' for the Europa Clipper mission, which is due to blast off in October 2024 to study Europa through a series of fly-bys, NASA said. .

The spacecraft will launch on a Falcon Heavy rocket owned by Musk's company from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the space agency added. .

But SpaceX – which made the announcement on its Twitter page – has the contract for the Europa Clipper mission safe.

(SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for Earth’s first mission to conduct detailed investigations of Jupiter's moon Europa,' the agency said in a statement.

NASA will aim to find out if she's correct with the launch of Europa Clipper, which will 'send a highly capable, radiation-tolerant spacecraft into a long, looping orbit around Jupiter to perform repeated close flybys of the icy moon'. 

NASA did not reveal whether other companies had bid on the Europa Clipper launch contract, which marks NASA's latest vote of confidence in Musk's firm

SpaceX has already carried several cargo payloads and astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for the space agency in recent years

Artemis 1 will be the first integrated flight test of NASA’s deep space exploration system: the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.  

Artemis 1 will be an uncrewed flight that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence to the moon and beyond. 

Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before. 

With this first exploration mission, NASA is leading the next steps of human exploration into deep space where astronauts will build and begin testing the systems near the moon needed for lunar surface missions and exploration to other destinations farther from Earth, including Mars. 

Together, Orion, SLS and the ground systems at Kennedy will be able to meet the most challenging crew and cargo mission needs in deep space

The space agency hopes this colony will uncover new scientific discoveries, demonstrate new technological advancements and lay the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy.