UT Blasts Off for Europa

December 13, 2025

University of Texas Institute for Geophysics

On Oct. 14, 2024, NASA’s Europa Clipper successfully launched atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, bound for Jupiter’s moon Europa. Among the instruments the spacecraft is carrying is a moon-imaging radar sounder named REASON that was developed by researchers at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and led by Research Professor Don Blankenship. Based on technology that researchers developed to peer inside Earth’s ice sheets, REASON will play a major role in determining whether Europa can, or ever did, support life.