Airbus readies Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer for April launch

Taylor Brie

ESA’s JUICE to Study Magnetic Fields and Life's Potential in the Jupiter System

Image Credit: ESA

Airbus announced on January 20 that the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), Europe's next flagship space mission, is ready for launch in April. In France, the final assembly and testing of JUICE took nearly a year and a half to complete. The final step in its preparation was the integration of a large 85-square-meter solar array developed by Azur Space of Germany to ensure the spacecraft has sufficient power even at a distance of 740 million kilometers from the sun.

In early February, Airbus will transport the JUICE satellite to Arianespace's launchpad in Kourou, French Guiana, where it will be launched on one of the last two Ariane 5 rockets before the debut of the Ariane 6 in late 2023. JUICE's preparation for its journey to the Jupiter system required the efforts of more than 500 Airbus employees and more than 80 European companies.

After a series of gravity-assisted flybys in the inner solar system, it will take JUICE roughly eight years to reach Jupiter's orbit in July 2031. The spacecraft is equipped with ten instruments to investigate the magnetic fields of the Jupiter system and potentially ocean-bearing moons Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. These instruments include cameras, an ice-penetrating radar, a radio-science experiment, and altitude and other data-measuring sensors.

The European Space Agency (ESA) hopes to use JUICE to investigate the potential for microbial life on the icy surfaces of the moon. In December 2034, after nearly three and a half years of flybys around Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto, JUICE will enter orbit around Ganymede to examine the largest moon in the solar system in greater detail. JUICE is expected to crash into Ganymede in late 2035 after running out of fuel at the conclusion of its mission, which will cost approximately $1.6 billion.

NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2019 and reach Jupiter's orbit in 2030 shortly before JUICE, will investigate whether Europa contains the necessary ingredients for life.