14.04.2023
The second attempt to launch the “Ariane 5” rocket, carrying the European space probe “JOS” on a mission to Jupiter and its frozen moons, in search of environments suitable for living outside Earth, succeeded in the first European mission of its kind.
go ahead space probe “Joss” Today, Friday (April 14, 2023), to explore the moons of Jupiter, which is the longest journey undertaken by a probe of the European Space Agency “ESA”.
The probe launched at 2:14 pm CET from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, as evidenced by live broadcast images at the ESA control center in Darmstadt, Germany.
Minutes after separation, the teams announced that they had received a signal from the probe, much to their relief.
The probe was able to open its solar panels, which have an area of 85 square meters, which is equivalent to the size of a basketball court, and was equipped with it in order to conserve energy, as sunlight is twenty-five times weaker than what is on Earth. It is the first critical moment, because without boards the long journey cannot be managed.
“I was very nervous (…) and I am very proud of Europe because Jos is the most important mission of this decade, and the most perfect of the probes sent to Jupiter to date,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher told AFP.
As for the head of the French National Center for Space Studies, which manages the Center for Guyana Philippe Baptiste, on the eve of the launch, he considered it “an exceptional mission that shows the capabilities of Europe.”
It is expected to take the probe eight years to reach the largest planet in the solar system, but after that scientists hope to gain important insights about the giant planet and its moons and an answer to the question of whether life could exist there in the first place.
The probe is on board the Ariane 5 rocket. The Jupiter Icy Moons explorer probe, named Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, is being directed from the European Space Agency’s control center in Darmstadt, southwestern Germany, near Frankfurt.
“JOS”, with a total cost of 1.6 billion euros, is the first European mission to enter the outer solar system, which begins after Mars.
and forward probe A long journey before it reaches its final destination, located more than 620 million kilometers from Earth, and begins its work on Jupiter. It is scheduled to reach Jupiter in 2031. This is the European Space Agency’s longest mission to the solar system to date.
The probe is equipped with ten scientific instruments through which the moons “Europe, Callisto and Ganymede” will be seen.
“The Jupiter system contains all the components of a mini solar system,” explained the Director of Science at the European Space Agency, Carol Mundell, and the astrophysicist considered that exploring it “will make it possible to study how our solar system works, and will try to answer the question,” Are we alone in the universe? “.
Goose’s main task is to find not life directly, but environments that allow it to exist. And if Jupiter itself, which is a gaseous planet, is unfit for life, then its moons Europa and Ganymede are among the best moons whose habitability can be studied, as they hide under their icy surface oceans of liquid water that are the main condition for the emergence of life forms.
The launch, which was originally scheduled for Thursday, had previously been canceled due to the risk of thunderstorms.
Kh.S/A.G.M (DPA, AFP)