The spacecraft JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer mission), built by Airbus and with significant participation from Spain, took off on February 9 from Toulouse (France) towards the European spaceport of Kourou (French Guiana) aboard an Antonov aircraft ahead of its launch on an Ariane 5 in April 2023.
The start of the launch campaign ends a nearly decade-long technological and industrial adventure for Airbus, which began even before it was selected as prime contractor by ESA in 2015, and in which more than 80 companies and centers have participated. research from all over Europe. The unprecedented JUICE mission will last more than a decade, managed by ESA, and will study Jupiter’s magnetic fields, as well as search for conditions conducive to life through the ice of the main Jovian moons.
On its multi-billion kilometer journey, the 6.2-tonne JUICE spacecraft will collect data on icy moons to try to understand whether there is any possibility that they harbor microbial life. Aboard 10 state-of-the-art scientific instruments, including cameras, spectrometers, an ice-penetrating radar, an altimeter, a radio science experiment, a particle packet, and various electric and magnetic field sensors, the JUICE spacecraft will complete a unique tour of the Jupiter system that will include in-depth studies of three potentially oceanic moons: Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto.
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