The Icy Jupiter Explorer will launch on April 13 and is the first European mission to Jupiter, according to the Space.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer probe, or JUICE for short, is scheduled to lift off aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on April 13.
The liftoff will begin a long interplanetary journey for JUICE, which will end with the spacecraft reaching Jupiter orbit in 2031.
The 6.6-tonne (6 metric tons) solar-powered probe will conduct a series of flybys of three of Jupiter’s four largest Galilean moons – Ganymede, Europa and Callisto, which are believed to have oceans of liquid water under the ice.
Then, in 2035, JUICE will move from the orbit of Jupiter to the orbit of Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system. This move will make JUICE the first probe to orbit a moon other than Earth’s.
And all the while, JUICE will be eyeing Jupiter and its three target moons with its powerful suite of 10 science instruments, studying them in unprecedented detail.
“The mission will characterize these moons as planetary objects and potential habitats, explore Jupiter’s complex environment in depth and study the wider Jupiter system as a prototype for gas giants throughout the universe,” ESA officials wrote in the mission description.