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The European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the JUICE mission over the next 8 years to explore Jupiter’s moons and the habitability of the largest planet in the solar system.
The JUICE mission intends to explore the planet Jupiter and in particular its moons that could hide habitable areas under their ice crusts. Scientists believe that this is one of the most promising places in the solar system for the existence of life.
The launch of the European probe JUICE, from the center of Kourou, in French Guiana, was postponed by one day due to weather conditions and the Ariana 5 rocket is due to take off on March 14, to reach Jupiter in July 2031. JUICE’s final target is the moon “Ganimede”, around which it will orbit from 2034.
This unprecedented mission will carry several high-tech systems on board, including instruments “most powerful remote sensing, geophysical observations and local environment detection ever sent to the outer Solar System“, according to ESA. It will be the first spacecraft to orbit a moon other than Earth’s.
The mission has an approximate cost of 1.6 billion euros and has extensive international collaboration. NASA, the Japanese space agency JAXA and the Israeli ISA both contribute hardware used in various instruments on board the spacecraft.
The way in which three elements interact, namely Jupiter’s magnetic field, its atmosphere and the surrounding area (where temperatures reach -230 ºC) is the unknown that scientists intend to unravel.
The scientific community hopes this mission will help better understand the physics of planetary environments and eventually discover whether life on one of Jupiter’s moons is possible.