Europa Clipper Magnetometer Boom Deployment: A First Look at the Magnetometer Observations of the Spacecraft and the Interplanetary Magnetic Field

Abstract

NASA’s Europa Clipper flagship mission is designed to investigate the habitability of Jupiter’s moon Europa. A key instrument aboard the spacecraft is the Europa Clipper Magnetometer (ECM), a suite of fluxgate magnetometer sensors deployed on a boom to minimize spacecraft-induced magnetic interference. The ECM investigation aims to characterize Europa’s induced magnetic field, offering constraints on the salinity, depth, and thickness of its subsurface ocean. This work presents the first in-flight ECM observations acquired during the magnetometer boom deployment and shortly thereafter. We show how these observations provide the requisite evidence needed to validate a successful deployment. We also demonstrate how these observations can be used to calibrate the sensor offsets and to develop new magnetic field models of the spacecraft of varying complexity, thus enabling the robust removal of the instrument’s zero-levels which is critical for achieving the mission’s science objectives. We finally share preliminary calibrated magnetometer observations acquired over a two-month period after deployment, revealing a very active interplanetary magnetic field characteristic of solar maximum.