An approaching hurricane has forced NASA and SpaceX to call off Thursday's planned launch of the highly anticipated Europa Clipper mission. The Latest Tech News, Delivered to Your Inbox

Discovering extraterrestrial life would be one of the most profound scientific and philosophical revelations that our species has ever made. But such a big discovery won't come easy. Our starting point is to first search other worlds for signs of habitability,

All of that, plus fuel, means the spacecraft tips the scales at approximately 13,000 lbs., which requires a bruiser of a rocket to muscle it off the ground. Europa Clipper will get that rocket, in the form of the 27-engine SpaceX Falcon Heavy, with over 5 million lbs. of thrust, able to launch more than 37,000 lbs. on an interplanetary trajectory.

NASA's Europa Clipper mission, launching on October 2024, will orbit Jupiter and conduct 49 close flybys of Europa, an icy moon with a subsurface ocean potentially harbouring life.

NASA is poised to launch Europa Clipper, a $5.2 billion mission to Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, as early as October 10. The spacecraft will blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. It will study Europa, a possible home for extraterrestrial life, through a series of flybys after reaching Jupiter in 2030.

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is scheduled for launch on October 10, 2024, from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The mission aims to explore Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons,