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NASA's Europa Clipper probe blasted off from Florida on October 14, heading to Jupiter's icy moon Europa to determine if it has the ingredients to support life, AFP reports.
The probe is due to reach Jupiter's moon Europa in five and a half years.
NASA confirmed that it had successfully received a signal from the probe and that its huge solar panels - designed to capture the faint light that reaches Jupiter - were fully deployed.
The mission will allow the US space agency to reveal new details about Europa, which scientists believe may have an ocean beneath its icy surface.
"With Europa Clipper, we're not looking for life on Europa, we're trying to find out if this ocean world is habitable, and that means we're looking for water," NASA official Gina DiBraccio said before the launch.
"We're looking for sources of energy and really looking at the chemistry there so we can figure out what habitable environments might exist throughout our universe," she added.
If the ingredients of life are found, another mission will have to take a trip to try to find it.
"This is a chance for us to explore not a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago like Mars, but a world that might be habitable today, right now," said Kurt Neuber, a scientist with the Europa Clipper program.
At 30 meters wide with the solar panels fully extended, the probe is the largest ever created by NASA for interplanetary exploration. | BGNES
