HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — Later this week, NASA will be launching the Europa Clipper spacecraft on a mission that’s going far in our solar system to study one of Jupiter’s moons to learn more about the icy world and see if it’s a place that could possibly hold life in its oceans below the icy crust, and NASA’s Langley Research Center will have a role to play in it.

This large spacecraft, about the size of a basketball court, has a long way to go. Jupiter is around 440 million away from Earth. To better illustrate that, let’s shrink it down into the scale model where each foot is equal to 2 million miles.

Now if the Earth is supposed to be 93 million miles away from the sun, following our scale model, that puts the Earth at 45 feet away. Now to get to Jupiter, we have to pass Mars — 68 feet from the sun in the scale model. The spacecraft will then use Mars as a slingshot to get itself to the outer solar system. At this point, the travel time will be years. Eventually, we have made it to Jupiter, and once the spacecraft arrives, it will orbit the planet and get in position to start to study its moon, Europa.

When the spacecraft is that far away, it needs to be able to communicate with Earth, and that’s where NASA Langley Research Center comes in. It tested the nearly 10-foot wide high-gain antenna inside their Experimental Test Range.

“The room is lined with RF absorbing material,” said Steve Harrah, NASA electromagnetic engineer. “So essentially, all electromagnetic energy that hits the walls gets absorbed and it simulates just that space as if there’s nothing else around. No signals from outside get in, no signals from inside get out. …

“I think all mankind will get a great sense of accomplishment. It’s 400 million miles away. And to work on something that’s going to fly that far, get there, go into orbit, and then start looking for places for future spacecraft to go and land potentially and explore that world.”

The Europa Clipper is scheduled to arrive to Jupiter’s Europa moon in the early 2030s.