This Thursday, April 13, 2023, the ESA’s Juice probe will take off from Guyana aboard the Ariane 5 rocket in the direction of Jupiter and its mysterious icy moons with the aim of discovering life.
[Updated April 11, 2023 3:15 PM] With the JUICE mission, all eyes are on Jupiter’s icy moons. Real mysteries for astronomers, these celestial objects could tell us a lot about the formation of the solar system and perhaps even about the appearance of life under their ice. The JUICE mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch its probe this Thursday, April 13 at 1:15 p.m. French time. Its trajectory can be followed live from its launch:
The largest planet in the solar system, home to 84 natural satellites, Jupiter is the planet of superlatives. A gas giant with a Dantesque climate, it fascinates astronomers who are increasingly interested in its multiple moons, the first of which were discovered more than 4 centuries ago. We now know, in particular thanks to the Galileo probe, that some of them, such as Europe, Callisto and Ganymede, are covered with ice sheltering oceans of liquid water. The whole challenge of the JUICE mission is therefore to understand the functioning of the Jovian system and the interactions that exist between Jupiter and its moons and to determine the conditions which allow the formation of planets and the appearance of life.
The JUICE mission, also called JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, is a space exploration program of the European Space Agency which consists of sending a probe to study Jupiter and three of its moons. The mission was originally scheduled to start in 2022, but is experiencing some delays. It should finally take off in April 2023.
After a journey of 600 million kilometers, the JUICE probe should reach the Jovian system, i.e. the planet Jupiter and its moons. She will then begin a mission of more than three years during which she will study Jupiter as well as its many natural satellites. It will deepen its analyzes on three of its largest moons: Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. These three stars are supposed to shelter oceans under a layer of ice. The probe will therefore look for traces of life in these environments.
After studying Jupiter and Callisto, the probe will head for the moon Europa, which it will fly over twice. On this occasion, the probe will measure the thickness of the crust of ice that covers the moon. She will also do scouting work for future missions. Thereafter, JUICE will place itself in orbit around the moon Ganymede, of which it will study the surface as well as the internal structure and the unique magnetic field of its kind in the solar system.
The JUICE probe prepares for liftoff this Thursday, April 13, 2023. The European probe will then embark on a long journey of about nine years that will take it to the outer solar system, on the other side of the main asteroid belt .
During its journey, the probe should fly over the Earth several times as well as the planet Venus before reaching its destination in July 2031: the planet Jupiter and its many moons. It will then fly over the gas giant before heading towards the icy moons of the latter. In December 2034 JUICE will arrive at Ganymede around which it will orbit.
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 will allow 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 will allow 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 engine 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 look for 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, which will be the last flight.
