Jupiter’s moon Europa has beguiled and intrigued scientists for decades. Its smooth, icy surface is thought to be hiding a vast liquid ocean that could very well be the solar system’s best bet for producing extraterrestrial life. Now, at last, plans have begun to be set in motion that could lead to humans’ first glimpse at alien life.

While the thought of sending a mission to Europa has been in the works for years, the vision started to become a reality when the White House allocated $30 million on its 2016 budget request to bring the mission to fruition. NASA was allocated a total of $18.5 billion in the request, although the budget must still be approved by Congress.

The quest to discover more about the 1,900-mile-wide moon would include a fly-by probe tentatively dubbed the Europa Clipper. In the current plan, Clipper would pass by Europa 45 times over the course of three and a half years from the orbit of Jupiter, at altitudes as close as 16 miles. Scientists in Europe are currently developing their own mission called the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer, which is scheduled to launch in 2022 and would study other satellites of Jupiter, namely Ganymede and Callisto.

The main objective of the NASA project would be to determine whether Europa’s subsurface sea would be able to support the development or incubation of organic life forms. It would study characteristics of the water, such as its depth and salinity, as well as mapping the ice shell that covers it, and relaying any data that might be useful for a future mission to the moon’s surface. A recent addition to the mission’s tasks would include sampling the plumes of water vapor that sometimes erupt from a spot near Europa’s south pole. The plumes, however, can be unpredictable, and the last ones were observed by the Hubble telescope in 2012.

“This is our chance,” said NASA science chief John Grunsfield, to investigate whether extraterrestrial life exists the solar system. “I just hope we don’t miss this opportunity for lack of ideas.”