NASA Job: Interplanetary Navigation Engineer — Behind the Spacecraft: Europa Clipper

Meet Sarah Elizabeth McCandless, an interplanetary navigator for NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, a mission to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa where a massive ice-covered ocean could potentially contain the right conditions to support life.

Tasked with guiding the spacecraft on its journey to Europa, Sarah shares how her love for exploration — from piloting planes to navigating the cosmos — has shaped her path to NASA.

Europa Clipper is set to launch in October 2024 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will arrive at Jupiter in 2030. The mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, with key spacecraft infrastructure contributions from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

For more information on the mission, visit: https://europa.nasa.gov/ Watch more episode of Behind the Spacecraft: Europa Clipper by visiting the series playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTiv_XWHnOZqkhPC1tfhVqnM1SvIgdn6z&si=24wUq1xk2GqWIvPw

Credit: NASA
Produced by: Scott Bednar, Daniel Salazar, Matthew Schara, Seth Robinson, Jessica Wilde