Are there places below the surface of Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, that could support life? On May 28, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. PDT in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium, Tracy Drain, chief engineer on the Europa Clipper mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is managed by Caltech, will talk about the mission's goals and share some of the engineering challenges involved in developing and launching this exciting spacecraft.
In a public talk called "Europa Clipper—The Adventure Begins!" Drain will delve into the first mission designed to conduct a detailed study of Europa. Scientists believe there is an enormous saltwater ocean beneath the moon's icy shell that could be habitable. The Europa Clipper, which launched on October 14, 2024, is the largest spacecraft ever developed by NASA for planetary exploration, with massive solar arrays to power it and a thick-walled vault to protect its electronics from the radiation trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field.
"We're going to a place that's super cool and is a juicy, juicy science target," Drain says. "It's in a place that is really hard to study because Jupiter, my favorite planet, has a massive radiation field around it. Europa is orbiting inside that radiation field, so there are some pretty significant technical challenges with even conceiving a mission that can study a moon there. Like, how you get there, how you deal with the radiation, how you power a spacecraft so far from the Sun. This talk will give people a peek into some of the interesting things that have happened along the way and hopefully plant a little seed of excitement that they can nurture over the next five years to get ready for all the science data that this mission is planning to send back."
Starting at 6 p.m., members of JPL's outreach team will be on campus to answer questions about the construction of the spacecraft and the scientific goals they hope the mission will achieve.
Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, Drain says she was an exploratory and nerdy kid, whose curiosity was influenced by her mother, who encouraged her to ask questions about the world around her. Though she had a deep interest in astronomy, she decided mechanical engineering provided a more guaranteed career path and earned a BS in the field from the University of Kentucky. Later, during her master's studies at Georgia Institute of Technology, she studied controls and vibration, and interned at NASA's Langley Research Center, where her intern projects were focused around aeronautic research. Drain joined JPL shortly after receiving her MS in 2000, and worked on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Kepler mission to discover exoplanets, the Juno mission to Jupiter, and the Psyche mission to study an asteroid prior to joining the Europa Clipper team.
The Watson Lectures offer new opportunities each month to hear how Caltech researchers are tackling society's most pressing challenges and inventing the technologies of the future. Join a community of curiosity outside Beckman Auditorium to enjoy food, drinks, and music together before each lecture. Interactive displays related to the evening's topic will give audience members additional context and information. The festivities start at 6 p.m. Guests are also encouraged to stay for post-talk coffee and tea as well as the chance to chat with attendees and researchers.
Learn more about the Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series and its history at Caltech.edu/Watson.
Watson Lectures are free and open to the public.
Advance registration for this event has closed. Check the Caltech events calendar for stand-by details. A recording will be made available on our YouTube
Recommended Reading:
Enjoy some reading recommendations from Tracy Drain! Click on the titles below to purchase from our partner bookseller, Vroman's.
- Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space by Kevin Hand
- The Mission: A True Story by David W. Brown
- Project Hail Mary: A Novel by Andy Weir
- Titan by Stephen Baxter
- Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1) by James S. A. Corey
- The Long Earth by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett
