MISSION JUICE. The Juice probe, which is going to study the icy moons of Jupiter, took off on Friday April 14 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. It is now embarking on a great journey through the solar system, arrival scheduled for 2031!
[Updated April 14, 2023 5:19 PM] Launched on Friday, April 14, 2023, the JUICE probe housed inside the fairing of an Ariane 5 rocket set off on a long journey. It will take him eight years to reach the giant Jupiter, located 775 million kilometers from Earth. For this, the probe will fly several times over our planet as well as our neighbor Venus in order to have enough momentum to reach its objective in 2031. It will then begin a long mission at the heart of the Jovian system, the objective of which is to study the Habitability of Jupiter’s Moons.
More than the gas giant itself, it is its natural satellites that the probe will be interested in, in particular its main moons: Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Hidden under their crusts, these stars contain oceans that intrigue researchers. After numerous flybys of the moons, the JUICE probe will reach Ganymede and will orbit around it. A sort of reduced model of a water-rich exoplanet, Ganymede is the main target of this mission. It will also be the first time that a human-made object will be placed in orbit around a natural satellite other than the Moon.
Organized by the European Space Agency, the JUICE mission which means JUpiter ICy moons Explorer is an ambitious project to explore the Jovian system. The mission will focus on the three main moons that revolve around the planet Jupiter and which are home to oceans hidden under a layer of ice. Long considered as totally inert places, these stars now arouse the curiosity of researchers who now consider them as worlds where life could potentially have developed. In other words, these Jovian moons could look like water-rich exoplanets, and studying them would give us a better understanding of these distant worlds.
JUICE will definitely leave the Earth-Moon system only after having flown once over Venus and several times over Earth. This will allow him to gain momentum for his great journey. After an eight-year journey through the solar system, the probe will reach Jupiter and its multiple moons in 2031. It will then perform 35 flybys of the gas giant’s three main moons: Ganymede, Europa and Callisto, over three years. In 2034, JUICE will orbit Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, and study its surface, internal structure and unique magnetic field in the solar system. According to the scientists interviewed by franceinfo, the mission could be renewed after this date.
Manufactured by the European manufacturer Airbus, the JUICE probe carries with it a paraphernalia composed of ten scientific instruments which represent a total payload of 285 kilograms. This is the first time that such a payload has been sent into the outer solar system.
All this equipment allows JUICE to perform a number of measurements and observations. With a total mass of 5.2 tons, the probe is equipped with several cameras, spectrometers, a radar which allows it to probe the ice, an altimeter or even magnetic field sensors whose objective is to study that of the moon Ganymede. The probe is also equipped with 20 small thrusters and a main motor with which it can adjust its trajectory.
To protect all these advanced tools when the probe is close to the Sun during its first years of travel, the large white dish with which it is equipped will be directed towards the Sun and will thus act as a heat shield. In this configuration, it is a parabolic antenna of smaller size which will ensure communication with the Earth. Subsequently, when JUICE is in a colder environment, the main dish will resume its communication function.
To supply all its equipment with electricity, JUICE has two huge solar panels with an area of ??84m². The Sun is so far from Jupiter that such a surface is necessary to obtain enough energy to operate the various devices on board.
The Jovian system that encompasses the planet Jupiter and its many moons is the subject of multiple researches carried out by the various space agencies. JUICE will not be the first probe to reach Jupiter. Indeed, the gas giant has already been flown over by various probes since Pioneer in 1973. It will be the third probe to be placed in orbit around the planet after Galileo in 1995 then Juno in 2016. JUICE should allow on the one hand to collect new information on Jupiter but also to explore its mysterious moons which intrigue more and more astronomers. The probe should study the Jovian system as a whole in order to understand how Jupiter formed and more broadly understand how the solar system works.
After flying over Jupiter, JUICE will take a closer look at its moons and in particular three of them: Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. True worlds covered in ice, scientists assume that the latter could contain liquid oceans under their surface. During its mission and thanks to its state-of-the-art instruments, the JUICE probe will therefore study the presence of water on these moons and why not, the traces of a present or past form of life. JUICE’s findings will be complemented over the next few decades by studies from the Europa Clipper probe, which will focus on the moon Europa, the most likely host to extraterrestrial life.
The JUICE probe will study the moon Ganymede in more detail, which is both the largest moon in the solar system and also the only natural satellite to have its own magnetic field. For this it will place itself in orbit around this star. It will be the first time a probe has orbited a moon in the outer solar system.
The JUICE mission was born following the abandonment of an American-European mission imagined in the 2010s and which was to embark on the exploration of the Jovian system. The JUICE probe was designed by the European Space Agency (ESA) with the participation of the American Space Agency (NASA), the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) and the Israeli Space Agency (ISA) who developed certain instruments and software on board the machine.
The space agencies involved in the JUICE mission have invested a total of 1.5 billion euros. The cost of this project is explained by the specificity of the devices on board the probe. This equipment was developed especially for this mission and is particularly sensitive. They use relatively expensive advanced technologies. To the construction costs of these devices are added those of the launch of the probe by an Ariane 5 rocket.
